Ambrose
Bierce was born in Meigs County, Ohio, on 24th June, 1842. He was
a printer's apprentice but influenced by his uncle, Lucius Bierce,
became a strong opponent of slavery.
On the outbreak of the Civil War Lucius
Bierce organized and equipped two companies of marines. Bierce joined
one of these on 19th April, 1861, and two months later became part
of the invasion force led by George McClellan
in West Virginia.
On 6th April, 1862, Albert S. Johnson
and Pierre T. Beauregard and 55,000
members of the Confederate Army attacked
Grant's army near Shiloh Church, in
Hardin, Tennessee. Taken by surprise, Grant's army suffered heavy
losses. Bierce was a member of the force led by General Don
Carlos Buell that forced the Confederate to retreat. Bierce was
deeply shocked by what he saw at Shiloh and after the war wrote several
short stories based on this experience.
Bierce was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant in November,
1862. Two months later he fought at Murfreesboro
where he saved the life of his commanding officer, Major Braden, by
carrying his to safety and he had been seriously wounded in the fighting.
In February, 1862 Bierce was commissioned first lieutenant of Company
C of the Ninth Indiana. He fought at Chickamuga
(September, 1863) under General William Hazen.
The sight of so many senior officers, including William
Rosecrans, fleeing from the battlefield, deeply shocked Bierce.
It is said that Bierce's idealism died that day and was replaced by
cynicism. He later wrote that during the war he entered "a world
of fools and rogues, blind with superstition, tormented with envy,
consumed with vanity, selfish, false, cruel, cursed with illusions
- frothing mad!"
Bierce served under General William Sherman
during his Atlanta Campaign. At Resaca
on 14th May, 1864, Bierce's close friend, Lieutenant Brayle was killed.
Two weeks later his regiment suffered heavy losses when attacked by
General Joseph Johnson at Pickett's
Mill. Bierce was badly wounded at Kennesaw Mountain when he was shot
in the head by a musket ball on 23rd June.
After being treated in hospital he returned to the front-line on 30th
September, 1864. The injury caused him long-term problems for the
rest of his life. He later wrote: "for many years afterward,
subject to fits of fainting, sometimes without assignable immediate
cause, but mostly when suffering from exposure, excitement or excessive
fatigue."
After the war Bierce went to California where he became a journalist
working for the Overland Monthly.
He travelled to England in 1872 and worked for humorous magazines
in London such as Figaro
and Fun. Bierce returned to the
United States in 1875 and over the next twelve years he contributed
to a wide variety of different journals.
In March, 1887, William Randolph Hearst,
recruited Bierce to write a regular humorous article for his San
Francisco Examiner. The articles were a great success and
Hearst was soon paying Bierce $100 a week to retain his services.
Bierce held strong opinions and was especially critical of social
reformers and liberal politicians. He advocated "a vigilant censorship
of the press, a firm hand upon the church, keen supervision of public
meetings and public amusements, command of the railroads, telegraph
and all means of communications" in order to stop the growth
of socialism.
In 1891 he published a book of short-stories about the Civil
War, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians
(later revised and republished as In
the Midst of Life). Bierce followed this with Can
Such Things Be? (1893), Fantastic
Fables (1899) and Shapes of Clay
(1903). In 1906 Bierce published The Cynic's
Word Book (reissued in 1911 as The
Devil's Dictionary).
As well as working for the San Francisco Examiner, Bierce contributed
to journals such as Cosmopolitan,
Everybody's, Hampton's
Magazine and Pearson's.
In 1895 he helped William Randolph Hearst
with his campaign against the the railway magnate, Collis
Huntington. It is argued that Bierce's articles helped to prevent
the growth of Huntington's company, Southern Pacific.
Bierce spent spent from 1909 to 1912 editing his 12 volume Collected
Works. In June 1913 Ambrose Bierce went to Mexico where
he disappeared. It is not known exactly when or how he died but it
has been suggested he was killed during the siege of Ojinaga in January,
1914.
(1)
Ambrose Bierce was influenced by his uncle, Lucius Bierce, a campaigner
against slavery. When John Brown was executed,
Bierce made a speech that was reported in the Summit Beacon
in Ohio (7th December, 1859)
The tragedy of Brown's is freighted with awful lessons and consequences.
It is like the clock striking the fatal hour that begins a new era
in the conflict with slavery. Men like Brown may die, but their acts
and principles will live forever. Call it fanaticism, folly, madness,
wickedness, but until virtue becomes fanaticism, divine wisdom folly,
obedience to God madness, and piety wickedness, John Brown, inspired
with these high and holy teachings, will rise up before the world
with his calm, marble features, most terrible in death and defeat,
than in life and victory. It is one of those acts of madness which
history cherished and poetry loves forever to adorn with her choicest
wreaths of laurel.
(2)
Ambrose Bierce took part in his first battle at Laurel Hill on 10th
July, 1861.
Just before nightfall one day occurred the one really sharp little
fight that we had. It has been represented as a victory for us, but
it was not. A few dozen of us, who had been swapping shots with the
enemy's skirmishers, grew tired of the resultless battle, and by a
common impulse, and I think without orders or officers, ran forward
into the woods and attacked the Confederate works. We did well enough,
considering the hopeless folly of the movement, but we came out of
the woods faster than we went in, a good deal.
(3)
After the war Ambrose Bierce wrote an article, What I Saw of
Shiloh, about arriving with General Don
Carlos Buell after the Battle of Shiloh.
There were men enough; all dead, apparently, except one, who lay
near where I halted my platoon to await the slower movements of the
line - a federal sergeant, variously hurt, who had been a fine giant
in his time. He lay face upward, taking in his breath in convulsive,
rattling snorts, and blowing it out in sputters of froth which crawled
creamily down his cheek, piling itself alongside his neck and ears.
A bullet had clipped a groove in his skull, above the temple; from
this the brain protruded in bosses, dropping off in flakes and strings.
The woods had caught fire and the bodies had been cremated. They lay,
half buried in ashes; some in the unlovely looseness of attitude denoting
sudden death by the bullet, but by far the greater number in postures
of agony that told of the tormenting flames. Their clothing was half
burnt away - their hair and beard entirely; the rain had come too
late to save their nails. Some were swollen to double girth; others
shriveled to manikins. According to degree of exposure, their faces
were bloated and black or yellow and shrunken. The contraction of
muscles which had given claws for hands had cursed each countenance
with a hideous grin.
(4)
Ambrose Bierce, San Francisco Examiner (17th August, 1890)
It was once my fortune to command a company of soldiers - real
soldiers. Not professional life-long fighters, the product of European
militarism - just plain, ordinary, American, volunteer soldiers, who
loved their country and fought for it with never a thought of grabbing
it for themselves; that is a trick which the survivors were taught
later by gentlemen desiring their votes.
(5)
General William Hazen, military report
(23rd June, 1864)
While engaged in this duty, Lieutenant Bierce was shot in the head
by a musket ball which caused a very dangerous and complicated wound,
the ball remained within the head from which it was removed sometime
afterwards.
(6)
Ambrose Bierce, Argonaut (9th February, 1879)
For nearly all that is good in our American civilization we are indebted
to England; the errors and mischiefs are of our own creation. In learning
and letters, in art and the science of government, America is but
a faint and stammering echo of England.
(7)
Ambrose Bierce, The Socialist (1894)
The socialist notion appears to be that
the world's wealth is a fixed quantity, and A can acquire only by
depriving B. He is fond of figuring the rich as living upon the poor
- riding on their backs. The plain truth of the matter is that the
poor live mostly on the rich.
(8)
Ambrose Bierce, speech on Socialism
in New York (July, 1906)
Nothing touches me more than poverty.
I have been poor myself. I was one of those poor devils born to work
as a peasant in the fields, but I found no difficulty getting out
of it. I don't see that there is any remedy for the condition which
consists in the rich being on top. They always will be. The reason
that rich men are poor - this is not a rule without an exception -
is that they are incapable. The rich become rich because they have
brains.
(9)
Charles Edward Russell, Hampton's
Magazine (September, 1910)
These articles (about Collis Huntington)
were extraordinary examples of invective and bitter sarcasm. After
a time the skill and steady persistence of the attack began to draw
attention. With six months of incessant firing, Mr. Bierce had the
railroad forces frightened and wavering; and before the end of the
year, he had them whipped.
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