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Bierce's Civil War tale Killed At Resaca, describes a reckless but gallant Union officer known for facing the hottest fire of any battle upright and in full uniform. His fellow soldiers wonder at his casual disregard for his own life and safety. When he is finally killed after a demonstration of pure bravery, Confederate and Union soldiers alike carry his body off the field. The answer to his mysterious behavior is a classic Bierce-ian twist.
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Ambrose Bierce's An Affair of Outposts' mixes melodrama with graphic combat writing to tell the story of an ill-fated love triangle. Betrayed by his wife, a young man with southern sympathies requests a commission in the Union Army from the Governor of his State. The Governor is reluctant but the man convinces him he wishes to be dead. When the governor visits the regiment during a battle, the young captain dies saving his life. The ending is classic...
3) Chickamauga
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Ambrose Bierce's Chickamauga‚ describes the 1863 Civil War battle in Northern Georgia known for bitter fighting and heavy casualties. A child stumbles onto the battlefield and witnesses the horror of heavily wounded combatants retreating and staggering to their death. Dreamlike and surreal, the story contrasts the innocence of the child with the terrible realities of war. As with many Bierce stories, a profound and surprising flourish brings the...
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First published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1889, Ambrose Bierce's A Horseman In the Sky‚ uses suspense and dreamlike imagery to help describe an unusual wartime episode. Set during the Civil War, a lookout in the Union army sees a mounted confederate spy across the river. Realizing the spy is his own father, the soldier faces a terrible ethical dilemma.
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In Ambrose Bierce's The Eyes of the Panther, a beautiful young woman rejects her suitor's marriage proposal. Explaining that she is insane, she describes the strange circumstances of her birth, involving the mysterious appearance of a panther at her mother's window, an event which terrorized her mother and led to the death of her older sister. Haunted by this spectre of a panther, the woman cannot marry. An early example of werewolf fiction, this...
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In Ambrose Bierce's short story One of the Missing, an orderly for the Union Army undertakes a scouting mission. Preparing to fire on a retreating army, the structure in which he is hiding is suddenly destroyed by cannon fire. When he comes to, he realizes he is completely pinned under the rubble. Making matters worse his own gun, primed and ready to fire, is coincidentally pointing at his head. This story, which originally appeared in The San Francisco...