Why does Henry run away in battle?

Henry runs because fear overwhelms the abstract bravery he rehearsed at home. In the smoke of his first major engagement he sees no heroic shape to imitate — only noise, death, and the possibility that the regiment will dissolve. Survival instinct tells him the line is a trap; shame arrives afterward, when he imagines eternal mockery.

Crane refuses to moralize the flight as unique weakness. Other soldiers waver; panic is contagious. Henry’s run sets up the novel’s study of courage-and-cowardice as situational, not essential. His return, lies about the wound, and eventual charging with the flag are attempts to answer the same question that made him flee: what will men think of me? Link the scene to illusion-vs-reality and the forest chapters where he watches wounded men he envies.