Stephen Crane 
Red Badge of Courage 

Written by Stephen Crane at the age of twenty-one, The Red Badge of Courage is one of the greatest war novels of all time — so groundbreaking that critics consider it to be the first work of modern American fiction. Although Crane never witnessed warfare, The Red Badge of Courage is a realistic and terrifying account of the Civil War and the fear that a young soldier must face on the battlefield as well as within himself.