The war is during 1899, and it's not the Spanish-American war.This isn't assignment, I'm just curious to know.
Crane was a war correspondent, and had reported on both the Greco-Turkish and the Spanish-American wars. I am surprised you are so sure this poem isn't about the Spanish-American war; I suspect it is about war in general - certainly including the two wars Crane had seen most copiously.
Sounds like War to me According to the black and bare lands, with women and babies weeping , etc. A person in the midst of this upheaval..the only one it seems Evidentely was ask milions of questions of why Because he was the only one who asked Why? He did not know the answer but he was the only one who cared..to me this is the meaning of the poem Stephen Crane wrote some brain teasing material..Read In the Desert
