Among living American writers of short stories, Ambrose
Bierce is un-excelled in strength and fine simplicity. Born
in 1842, he served during the Civil War, and was brevetted
major for distinguished services. He went to California in
1866, and his name became familiar to readers of Pacific
Coast journals. His contributions, however, quickly won a
hearing throughout the country and in England, whither he
went in 1872, remaining for a few years and writing for
English periodicals. Later he returned to California, and
more recently he removed to Washington.
The keenest, most incisive, most telling contemporary
criticism was found in the column he used to contribute to
the San Francisco _Examiner_, "Prattle: A Transient Record
of Individual Opinion." Of his verse, at least one poem,
"The Passing Show," is deserving of a permanent place in
literature. More verse, more fiction, would be welcome from
his pen. He has produced less than those who read the
following story will wish, for the reason, perhaps, that he
has freely given so much of his time to teaching others how
to write.
It is natural, considering the experiences through which he
passed at the time of life in which conscious impressions
are most vivid, that Mr. Bierce should turn frequently to
the incidents of war. The very restraint of his style makes
his war pictures the more impressive--adds to their potency
as arguments for peace. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge"[A] is Mr. Bierce at his best. Powerful, grim,
pathetic, it dips deep into the well of the human soul.
A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into
the swift waters twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back,
the wrists bound with a cord. A rope loosely encircled his neck. It was
attached to a stout cross-timber above his head, and the slack fell to the
level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting
the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him, and his
executioners--two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a
sergeant, who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short
remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of
his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge
stood with his rifle in the position known as "support"--that is to say,
vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm
thrown straight across the chest--a formal and unnatural position,
enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty
of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge;
they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot-plank which traversed it.
[Footnote A: This story is taken from "In the Midst of Life," a volume of
Mr. Bierce's tales--Copyright, 1898, by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York.]
Beyond one of the sentinels, nobody was in sight; the railroad ran
straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost
to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of
the stream was open ground--a gentle acclivity crowned with a stockade of
vertical tree-trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure
through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the
bridge. Midway of the slope between bridge and fort were the spectators--a
single company of infantry in line, at "parade rest," the butts of the
rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the
right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at
the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left
hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the center of
the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring
stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might
have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms,
silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death
is a dignitary who, when he comes announced, is to be received with formal
manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the
code of military etiquette, silence and fixity are forms of deference.
The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five
years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which
was that of a planter. His features were good--a straight nose, firm
mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight
back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fitting frock
coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were
large and dark-gray and had a kindly expression which one would hardly
have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no
vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging
many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.
The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside
and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant
turned to the captain, saluted, and placed himself immediately behind that
officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the
condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank,
which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which
the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had
been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that
of the sergeant. At a signal from the former, the latter would step
aside, the plank would tilt, and the condemned man go down between two
ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgment as simple and
effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked
a moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the
swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of
dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the
current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!
He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and
children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists
under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers,
the piece of drift--all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of
a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a
sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct,
metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the
anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and
whether immeasurably distant or near by--it seemed both. Its recurrence
was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death-knell. He awaited each
stroke with impatience and--he knew not why--apprehension. The intervals
of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With
their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness.
They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he should shriek.
What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. "If I could free
my hands," he thought, "I might throw off the noose and spring into the
stream. By diving I could evade the bullets, and, swimming vigorously,
reach the bank, take to the woods, and get away home. My home, thank God,
is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond
the invader's farthest advance."
As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed
into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it, the captain
nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.