Essay on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

I chose this source from the National Archives due to its relevance to the era in which “The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, by Ambrose Bierce was written. This document stresses the life of Confederate citizens in relation to contact with Federal soldiers. It includes information about citizens loyal to the Confederate flag spying, violating military orders, citizens moving through military installations, citizens not surrendering to the Union, and citizens committing sabotage to Federal arms. Citizens also provided business firms and services to assist the Confederate war effort, even after being seized by Federal arms. Civilian businesses even northward provided Confederate espionage, deceit, and the hiding of Confederate guerilla forces.

Through “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” the soldiers standing, watching as everything goes on around them, are not able to stop what is happening. The soldiers represent the unforgiving nature of war.

The Gettysburg battle was a major turning point for the Union, but was also a devastating battle because there were over 50,000 casualties. On November 19th, 1863 during the dedication ceremony for the National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Abraham Lincoln gave his famous speech, “The Gettysburg Address.” Lincoln addresses his speech to a whopping audience of 15,000 people. Those 15,000 people consist of family and friends of the deceased soldiers, Union, and activists. His speech is only 272 words and less than three minutes long ,but is able to appeal to the audience. In “The Gettysburg Address,” Lincoln uses the rhetorical strategies allusion, formal diction, anaphora, antithesis, and parallelism to achieve his purpose to honor the soldiers who gave their lives and to remind the nation to keep fighting for liberty and equality that was constructed by the Declaration of Independence.

Author, Ambrose Bierce, who is considered one of the Great American authors, wrote during the realism period. Particularly, in his work titled An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, written in 1890, we can see evidence of the characteristics, themes and style identified with the realism movement which was extant in American letters between 1850 and 1900. As a representative of such a movement, Ambrose Bierce, then remains on the most identifiable and iconic writers of his time.

The American Civil War, known as the War Between the States’ by some, was America’s bloodiest war. The Civil War consisted of over 10,000 battles between The Union Army of the North and the South’s Confederate Army, which lasted almost 4 years. The War was fought in 23 states and of the more than 10,000 battles only about 50 were major battles. (Weider, The Civil War, 1) In this paper the reader will learn about important dates of the war also about 4 of the bloodiest battles in the war; the Battle of Shiloh, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Chickamauga, and the Battle of Gettysburg. The American Civil War had more than 650,000 casualties. (Weider, The Civil War, 1)

Hello, and today I am doing a report on a historical fiction book, and I chose this book, A Blaze of Glory. First, I will be overviewing the setting. The book mainly takes place in Southwest Tennessee with some events taking place in Northeastern Mississippi. However, the main action happens in Shiloh, Tennessee, where the Battle of Shiloh takes place, the main event of the book. To be more specific, the Battle of Shiloh takes place at Pittsburg Landing, which is very close to Shiloh. (The Battle of Shiloh is also known as the battle of Pittsburg Landing). The events of the book take place from February 22, 1862, to April 28, 1862, during the Civil War. (The dates are in the book at the beginning of each chapter). However, the main battle of the book, the Battle of Shiloh, takes place on April 6-April 7. That is where and when my book, A Blaze of Glory, takes place.

I tune my ears to listen for the click of the pen as I force my fingers to work, my ears buzz tuning out the sound of guns shooting into the distance. My sweaty fingertips nervously grip the pen as I watch the scary scene unveil before my eyes. The sound of swords piercing skin was too unbearable. My eyes widen as I see many men lying on the floor with pools of blood surrounding them. Their ghastly faces burning in my brain as I try to look away. The men in blue collide with the men in plain clothes, then more plainclothes come charging up to the hill where the men in blue were. Two men from each side stand in the front of their people, each proudly holding a flag. The confederate flag and the union flag were shown with pride as the men holding the flags were taken down by their opponents.

No other war seems to hold our focus like the Civil War. Scholars have chosen to make it their life's work, authors have written reams about it, and we all feel some kind of connection to the Civil War. This paper was created to highlight some of the major battles that took place during that conflict. Major battles usually marked a drastic change in the momentum from one side to the other or led to massive losses of troops. These battles and their results all played a huge part in the outcome of the war.

First of all, Do not go to the Owl Creek Bridge if you want to keep your life. Do not try and burn the bridge down!!! I know things that you do not know like, there will be a whole army there waiting for you sir, if you go to the bridge. If you consider doing so you will be hung the next morning before dawn. It is all a lie, the guard giving you this idea is a spy from the North. I hope this letter reaches you in time Mr. Farquhar. Do not go to the bridge!

The civil war had been won. “ the victorious North had a celebration (Swanson 5)” President Abraham Lincoln had given a 701 word speech. Nearly all were happy except for John Wilkes Booth, who was furious. He had once plotted to kidnap Lincoln, now he was trying to murder him. On Good Friday morning, April 14, 1865 ( Swanson 9), at Ford’s Theater, Booth had snuck into the president’s box and had shot him with a fatal blow (Swanson 39). As he was escaping into the country, he had encountered an old friend named Doctor Samuel A. Mudd (Swanson 96), who had brought him in for hospitality. He had no knowledge of Booth assassinating President Lincoln. Eventually, Doctor Mudd was sentenced to life in prison for helping John Wilkes Booth. Doctor Samuel A. Mudd should not have been sentenced to life in prison, because he had simply helped John Wilkes Booth without

Tens of thousands of soldiers from both sides were killed. Most confederate families had to face the death of at least one male family member. In the “The Million Dead, Too, Summ'd Up-The Unknown” Whitman explains that “our young men once so handsome and so joyous, taken from us-the son from the mother, the husband from the wife, the dear friend from the dear friend” (Finseth, 258). Thousands of the deceased soldiers were lying on the battlefield, in ditches, at bases of trees abandoned, and floating in rivers. Whitman helps to paint a clear image of all the abandoned corpuses “the single graves left in the woods or by the road-side, (hundreds, thousands, obliterated)—the corpses floated down the rivers, and caught and lodged, (dozens, scores, floated down the upper Potomac, after the cavalry engagements, the pursuit of Lee, following Gettysburgh)—some lie at the bottom of the sea—the general million, and the special cemeteries in almost all the States—the infinite dead” (Finseth, 258). Most of the dying soldiers from both the Union and Confederacy, had to deal with the fact that there was no way to identify the bodies, and as a result many of the bodies remain unknown. Therefore, many dying soldiers would place identifying markers on the inside of their uniforms in the hopes that their body would be identified. The government had to decide what to do with all the bodies. People were

According to ‘Walt Whitman a Brooklyn Journalist’ People in the future “Will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background” of the Civil War he said that “The real Civil War will never make it into books.” We can only imagine the horror that people felt back then. During “the bloodiest war in history.” There was a total of 50 major battles and 5000 minor

Reading and understanding literature is not as easy as it sounds. Being able to dissect each piece of information and connect it to the overall theme of the story takes lots of rereading and critical thinking. Reading the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” takes lots of critical thinking and understanding the literature in a different point of view than the average reader would. The theme of this particular story quickly came to mind after initially concluding the reading, the author is trying to convey that nobody can escape death and how thoughts in the mind are so substantial in the consciousness that it can take over the reality. The author comes to this theme by incorporating specific literary elements such a symbol, irony,

Terrie Dopp Aamodt, Righteous Armies, Holy Cause: Apocalyptic Imagery and the Civil War (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2002)

In paragraph one, disaster hit the city of St. Louis on the fifteenth of July in 1823. News eventually spread by the Missouri Republican. The newspaper stated, “The Blackfoot had attacked trappers on the Yellowstone River near the Crow village.” The newspaper goes along to explain the attack on the leaders, Robert Jones and Michael Immell. It is explained after these two were shot down, the soldiers fighting under the two leaders, had no guidance. These soldiers were quickly slaughtered and robbed of their 25 packs of fur. After the paragraph was published, the editor of