Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage is not so much a Civil War novel, but more a story of two young soldiers in the midst of a war much larger than either of them. The book only follows these two soldiers for a matter of weeks, but it spans a lifetime's worth of battles, both physical and introspective. By the end, the two young soldiers develop and change so drastically that they are entirely unrecognizable from the scars of war. Their transition from fresh, uncertain soldiers to hardened veterans is compelling to watch.
Having that said, this book is still a war novel. The beauty of this book, though, is that it does not focus on the mundane little facts of the Civil War, but brings you harshly into the dirty features of war itself. Crane keeps up a relentless pace that rarely lets up, throwing these two soldiers into the fray of combat time after time. His palpable and even grotesque descriptions of battle immerse you in with the characters, leaving you clinging on with dread and excitement. Vast vistas of trampled battlefields, lines of musket-bearing soldiers colliding with each other, and nineteenth century American landscape are spread right in front of you. If you are looking for a textbook of the Civil War, this is not it. If you are looking for a raw piece of war fiction, you have found it.
The Red Badge of Courage is deserving of its title as a classic and as one of the greatest war novels ever written. The story of these two young soldiers intertwined with the beast of war is a great read that I recommend to anyone.