http://www.blog4history.com/2009/10/orange-blossoms/ Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:26:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 http://www.blog4history.com/2009/10/orange-blossoms/comment-page-1/#comment-13081 Stanley Wertheim Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:30:39 +0000 http://www.blog4history.com/?p=685#comment-13081 I was very much intrigued by this account since I've had a lifelong interest in the career of Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage (1895). The occasional descriptions of places and events that comprise the factual background of the novel follow closely the details of the Battle of Chancellorsville, fought in late April and early May 1863 on the banks of the Rappahannock River in northern Virginia. The movements of Crane’s fictional 304th New York roughly correspond to those of the 124th New York State Volunteer Regiment, known as the Orange Blossoms, which had its first experience of combat at Chancellorsville. Stephen Crane most likely chatted with some of the veterans of this regiment under the impressive Civil War monument in Port Jervis’ Orange Square. His father, the Reverend Jonathan Townley Crane, was pastor of the Drew Methodist Church that still fronts on the square, and the parsonage in which Crane spent much of his childhood is only a few doors away. I was very much intrigued by this account since I’ve had a lifelong interest in the career of Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage (1895). The occasional descriptions of places and events that comprise the factual background of the novel follow closely the details of the Battle of Chancellorsville, fought in late April and early May 1863 on the banks of the Rappahannock River in northern Virginia. The movements of Crane’s fictional 304th New York roughly correspond to those of the 124th New York State Volunteer Regiment, known as the Orange Blossoms, which had its first experience of combat at Chancellorsville. Stephen Crane most likely chatted with some of the veterans of this regiment under the impressive Civil War monument in Port Jervis’ Orange Square. His father, the Reverend Jonathan Townley Crane, was pastor of the Drew Methodist Church that still fronts on the square, and the parsonage in which Crane spent much of his childhood is only a few doors away.

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