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The Red Badge of Courage

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Henry Fleming, along with most Civil War soldiers, endured psychological struggles when faced with the reality that death is inevitable. Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage as a realistic novel by using average soldiers and conflicts that the average person could easily understand. Crane also included naturalism in this novel by associating the setting with the protagonist. Stephen Crane’s use of these psychological struggles made The Red Badge of Courage a truly unique novel of its time. The Red Badge of Courage is set in during the Civil War at the three day long Battle of Chancellorsville. The Civil War lasted for about four years in which the Union Army fought the Confederate Army, to preserve the United States, in sixty-seven full-scale battles, three hundred and ten engagements, and 6,337 skirmishes (Bowman 280). The Civil War claimed approximately 360,000 Union soldiers’ lives and left hundreds of thousands of men disabled. More than 400,000 men died of diseases, accidents, and other causes than war (Bowman 280). The war also severely hurt the economy. The property losses would cost billions of dollars by today’s terms. The total cost of the Civil War was fifteent billion in 1860 dollars which is equal to three hundred and fifty billion in 1990 dollars (Bowman 280). These losses resulted in the restoration of the American Union and the emancipation of four million enslaved African Americans. The Confederate Army fought against the mighty Union army for their independence from the United States of America. The Confederates fought defensively against the Union on their own home turf. Approximately 260,000 Confederate soldiers’ lives were claimed over the course of the Civil War period (Bowman 280). The number of Confederate civilian war dead is undeterminable but could be estimated at possibly tens of thousands. The South’s geography was severely

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