Crane employs similes and personification to draw pictures of soldiers and their weapons. For example, a soldier's "eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones"; "The man at the youth's elbow was babbling something soft and tender like the monologue of a babe"; "The guns squatted in a row like savage chiefs." Crane uses both personification and simile in the line, "The cannon with their noses poked slantingly at the ground grunted and grumbled like stout men, brave but with objections to hurry." This line makes the weapons appear to be living creatures. The use of personification in the line, "The sore joints of the regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into position," turns the regiment into one large, tired soldier. Crane's similes describe groups and individuals in these examples: the rebel forces were "running like pursued imps" and Henry, at first, "ran like a rabbit" and, later, "like a blind man."
Crane develops imagery, using metaphor and personification, to make it clear that Henry has lost all his rational powers and that he is in a total state of panic. For example, to Henry, the enemy soldiers are metaphorically "machines of steel," "redoubtable dragons," and "a red and green monster"; the men who were nearest the battle would make the "initial morsels for the dragons"; "the shells flying past him have rows of cruel teeth that grinned at him." These images clearly show Henry's fright of the enemy.
In Chapter 9, Crane continues to use figurative language to support the war motif. He turns machines of war into people by using personification in the line "a crying mass of wagons." He changes Henry by using a simile, "His [Henry's] face would be hidden like the face of a cowled man," by using metaphor. Henry (in his own mind) is a "worm" and "a slang phrase." Crane also paints a picture of the battlefield using metaphoric description of battlefield action, examples being, "the heart of the din" (the battle) and "the mighty blue machine" (the Union Army).
