The Red Badge of Courage: ThemeTracker

The LitCharts ThemeTracker is a mini-version of the entire LitChart. The ThemeTracker provides a quick timeline-style rundown of all the important plot points and allows you to track the themes throughout the work at a glance.

	1	Jim Conklin tells a bunch of soldiers that their regiment has been ordered to march into battle. Having dreamed of glorious battles all his life, Henry now worries that he might run away. Henry asks Jim if he would ever run away. Jim replies he will follow the other soldiers’ lead.
	2	After several days of waiting, the regiment finally marches to battle. Henry meets Wilson and asks if he would run from battle. Wilson confidently says he would not.
	3	The regiment runs toward the battle. Henry passes his first corpse. The soldiers dig into position but are continuously ordered to move. Wilson privately tells Henry he expects to die and hands him a packet of letters for his parents.
	4	Bullets and shells start hitting around them. The lieutenant is shot in the hand. A group of blue soldiers runs past in frenzied retreat. They are mocked by veteran soldiers nearby.
	5	The enemy appears and charges Henry’s regiment. Henry starts working furiously at his gun, feeling like a cog in a machine. The lieutenant beats back a soldier who is trying to run away. Henry’s regiment celebrates when they successfully repel the enemy charge.
	6	But the enemy regroups and charges them again. One by one, blue soldiers start running away from the line. Henry soon joins them and runs like crazy. Henry overhears a general saying that the 304th held back the enemy’s charge.
	7	Henry feels really guilty but rationalizes that he made the smart decision. Henry wanders into the woods and feels in harmony with nature. But he discovers a dead soldier’s rotting corpse and flees in terror.
	8	Returning toward the battle, Henry finds a column of wounded soldiers in retreat. He sees a spectral soldier. A tattered man asks Henry questions about his wounds, but Henry loses him in the crowd.
	9	Henry decides he wants a wound—“a red badge of courage”—of his own. Henry sees a spectral soldier who turns out to be Jim Conklin, suffering from a terrible wound. Delusional, Jim runs into the fields and collapses dead. Henry and the tattered man follow and view the corpse in shock.
	10	The tattered man tells Henry he’s feeling bad. He describes his own injuries and asks Henry again about his wounds. Henry is frustrated and abandons the tattered man in a field.
	11	Henry meets another procession of retreating troops. Everyone watches a column of soldiers heading toward the battle. Henry envies them, wishing he could go and die a glorious death.
	12	The soldiers come running back from the battle in panicked retreat. Henry grabs a passing soldier to ask “why—” but the man slams Henry’s head with the butt of his rifle. A cheerful soldier guides Henry back to his regiment. Henry realizes he never saw the man’s face.
	13	Henry lies to Wilson about what happened. The colonel says Henry’s wound looks just like he got hit on the head. Wilson bandages Henry’s head and gives him his own blankets to sleep on.
	14	Wilson fixes Henry’s bandage, makes breakfast, and settles some disputes in camp. Wilson tells Henry about the regiment’s losses and how most of the men have returned, like Henry.
	15	The regiment prepares for battle again. Wilson sheepishly asks Henry for his letters back. Henry returns them and feels morally superior, ready for anything.
	16	The regiment marches into position in the woods. Henry complains about the generals, but shuts up when another soldier calls him out for being too bold.
	17	Enemy soldiers attack the line. Henry furiously works his gun and gets completely absorbed in the action. When the fighting stops, Henry is standing alone in front of everyone. The lieutenant praises his fierceness.
	18	Henry and Wilson run to find water and overhear an insulting officer call their regiment “mule drivers.” Henry and Wilson hear a general planning to use their regiment in a deadly assault and return to the line.
	19	The regiment charges into a clearing, but comes under heavy fire and stops twice along the way. The lieutenant, Henry, and Wilson scream encouragements. Henry and Wilson grab the battle flag from the fallen color guard.
	20	Henry pulls the flag away from Wilson and carries it at the front. The regiment starts to retreat, but there’s nowhere to go. The lieutenant gets shot in the arm. The enemy comes into view and the regiment wins a desperate fight at close range.
	21	The regiment returns to the lines but gets called “mud diggers” by the insulting officer. They hadn’t made it far enough over the field. Some of the men tell Henry and Wilson how they overheard their commanders praising their bravery in battle.
	22	The regiment charges into the field again. A small group of gray soldiers takes over a strategic fence and cuts down much of the regiment. Henry imagines his own corpse on the battlefield as his revenge on the insulting officer.
	23	The regiment makes a furious charge to the fence and most of the enemy runs away. Wilson grabs the enemy’s flag from the dying color guard. The regiment takes four prisoners and celebrates victory.
	24	The regiment is ordered back to their camp on the river. Henry contemplates his past actions and judges them with a new fairness and maturity.