The best-known novel about the Civil War is The Red Badge of Courage (1895) by Stephen Crane, whose descriptions of battle were so realistic that some veterans of the war were convinced that Crane must have fought beside him. In fact, Crane was born in 1871, some six years after the, war ended. Some actual veterans of the Civil War did write fiction in which they drew on their battle experiences, most notably Ambrose Bierce, John Esten Cooke, and John William De Forest.

Ambrose Bierce, who served in the Union army for most of the Civil War probably had more firsthand battle experience in that war than any other American writer. He fought in several major battles in Tennessee, some of the bloodiest of the war, including the battles of Shiloh (April 1862), after which he was commended for. bravery; Stones River (December 1862), where he rescued...