Civil War Stories by Ambrose Bierce

Civil War Stories Reviews

• 
  Stacey

  I really enjoyed this collection of stories. I stumbled across an article on 6/24/17 'the 175th anniversary of the birth of Ambrose Bierce' and knew I had to read something he wrote. He fought in the Civil war for the Union and the stories reflect his experiences and there's NO doubt which side he was on. I think he's a great author with insight about the psyche of a soldier, humor, and writing a short story ending with a punch are his strong suit. Bravo, Mr. Bierce and thank you for your service!
• 
  Helga

  Ah, those many, many needless dead!
  
  These unique short stories are based on Ambrose Bierce's own experiences of the American Civil War, examining the human nature amidst harrowing, unusual and uncanny incidents.
• 
  Sharon Barrow Wilfong

  Ambrose Bierce was an enigmatic man. He wrote for newspapers, short stories, and poetry. His writing was colored by acerbic wit and more than a touch of bitterness. He traveled to Mexico in 1913. In a farewell letter he wrote, "If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it a pretty good way to depart this life..."
  
  
  That was the last heard of Bierce. It is assumed that he died in the siege of Ojinaga in January 1914.
  
  
  This collection of stories are considered some of the best of Bierce's fiction. They are inspired largely from his own experiences in the war. However, Bierce's writing isn't worth reading because he is an authority on the Civil War but rather because of his ability to cause the reader to dive into each scene and experience along with the characters the events that take place.
  
  
  Perhaps he is a little verbose on detail but that seems to be a characteristic of writers of that day. Another common story technique that Bierce uses is to create a story line that appears to have no arc. It simply builds until the final paragraph, sometimes the last sentence, where the full force of the story arrives home to astound the reader.
  
  
  My one criticism is that in some of the stories the difficulty for the protagonist could have been avoided if he had only employed common sense. In one such story a man does amazingly foolish things because, as it turns out, some idjit of a woman back home "hoped he wouldn't turn out to be a coward as Captain so and so claimed." Really? We counter that with risking our life to the point of finally losing it for nothing? How about just finding a new girlfriend?
  
  
  Another story has a Captain so blindly following orders that he knowingly engages in friendly fire because ordered to "shoot ahead no matter what" by a superior who had also told him to never question an order.
  
  
  But there are also some real gems. Parker Addison, Philosopher is my favorite. A Union spy engages in a witty, belligerent repartee with a Confederate General who has him in custody. The wit and belligerence is all on the side of the spy. The general merely asks formal questions. He even smiles at some of the remarks. The spy apparently has no belief in any kind of afterlife and thumbs his nose at his imminent death. Until he is unexpectedly faced with it. The ending is tense and the action lightening-speed paced culminating to a surprisingly peaceful end. Well, at least for one of them.
  
  
  Bierce doesn't spare the reader the horrors of war. There is no romanticism here. Nevertheless his stories are told with rich descriptions and show the honor and respect due to both sides as they each act according to their convictions. Probably the most poignant of his stories deal with the dividing of families as each choose the side they serve, sometime with harrowing results.
  
  
  Anyone interested in Civil War history and plot twist play in the style of Poe, O Henry or even Lovecraft will enjoy this small collection of short stories by a man who, sadly, lived through enough of the war to become tired of living.
• 
  Ellen

  If you want to read vivid descriptions of the front line of the Civil War, read these stories. If you want to read dark, biting satire, read these stories. If you want to read something that makes you say, "That's effed up!" read these stories. If you're looking for happy-go-lucky stories about rabbits searching for rainbows to tell your children before they go to bed, look elsewhere.
• 
  P.E.

  A collection of compelling short stories taking place during the ghastly American Civil War, in which the writer took part.
  
  
  Matching soundtrack :
  
  Galactic Funk - DJ Spooky
  
  Rebirth of a Nation - DJ Spooky
• 
  Kokelector

  Un recordatorio que se puede escribir de todo, y mejor aún que se puede hacer de forma extraordinaria. Bierce, un estadounidense que después de estar un año en la Academia Militar participa en la Guerra Civil. ¿Por cuál bando? No lo sabemos con certeza, a veces nos habla de los confederados (norte) y a veces de la unión (sur), para mostrarnos que la guerra es peleada por los mismos vecinos que unos días atrás compartían en los porches de sus casas. Nos recuerda mucho el registro del best-seller chileno: “Un veterano de tres guerras”, pero este no es un diario, sino que un ejercicio propio de la escritura: relata batallas, experiencias que atraviesan el complicado problema del porqué se pelea una guerra. Son 14 cuentos, relatos, que avanzan de forma vertiginosa, exprimiendo la experiencia humana a través de un testigo de primera fuente, que escribe con verdadera maestría la lógicas que hay detrás de una batalla que no sabemos hasta su final si es ganada o no. Como dato interesante: es uno de los escritores preferidos de Lovecraft y tenía toda la razón. Una excelente lectura para comprender de mejor forma lo que sigue ocurriendo con el racismo en EE.UU. -por ejemplo- y que las guerras, por el motivo que sean, nunca son una buena opción para la humanidad.
  
  (...) "- ¿Quién fue el agresor en este asunto, usted o el general Hart?/-Yo fui./¿Y podría usted no saber? ¿No vio, señor, que usted atacaba a su propio ejército?/!La respuesta fue impresionante!/-Lo supe, general. Pero me pareció que no era algo de mi incumbencia." "Ningún territorio es demasiado hostil o feroz como para que el hombre lo convierta en un escenario bélico." "La carta denotaba evidencias de buena crianza y refinamiento, no obstante, era una carta de amor ordinaria, si una carta de amor puede ser ordinaria." "Nuestra oscura y sinuosa fila de soldados, arrastrándose como una serpiente gigante bajo los árboles, parecía interminable. Y estoy casi avergonzado de decir cuán dulce se me antojaba la compañía de esos hombres rudos." (...)
• 
  globulon

  Some books really give you a feel for a specific time and place. "The Tale of Two Cities" does that for me with the French Revolution. It's not so much that it gives a sophisticated intellectual understanding as that it gives a vivid impression of what it may have been like to live there at that time. Perhaps all really great books do this, but it seems to me some do it more than others. This collection of short stories by Bierce is one of them. In it I get a feel for what the actual people who fought the Civil War are like, how they are different from other people who fought other wars. It may not all be accurate although it is informed by personal experience, but none the less it throws a striking image on the mind of the times and personalities involved.
  
  The stories themselves are for the most part driven by twist endings. Whether or not this is the highest form of the short story, the stories are readable and pungent. One comes away with a strong sense of how Bierce saw the war without him for the most part resorting to direct commentary. Very satisfying.
• 
  Fraser Burnett

  Bitter Bierce has many collections to choose from, each one worth a neb, especially his weird tales, but this cheap collection from Dover Publications contains some of his heaviest tales, drawn from his own experiences at the frontline of the American Civil War, as well as his most famous story, 'An Occurrence at Owl-Creek Bridge'.
• 
  Mason Frierson

  Ambrose Bierce was an acerbic, conceited, misfit of a man often in conflict with those around him but his distance from people allowed him to observe them with a laser focus. These are not your standard war stories of bravery, cowardice and conflict although all these elements are here in abundance, no, these stories are about the Twilight Zone ending, the Rod Serling irony, the fickle twist of fate, the opposite being true of the obvious. No wonder "An Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge" was the only Twilight Zone not produced by Serling. Ambrose Bierce had already produced it as though he had The Zone in mind as he was writing it. All of these stories will stay with you long after you have closed the pages.
• 
  Justin Covey

  You know how most are gonna end but the construction is just flawless.
• 
  Emilia

  Mmmmmmmmmmm no me gusto pero rescato la escritura. Creo que definitivamente no estoy para literatura de guerra.
• 
  Jake Williams

  Bierce's stories are part Civil War ultra-realism, like The Red Badge of Courage, and part Twilight Zone. Some of them take place on Georgia battlefields that the author fought at like Chickamauga, Resaca, and Kennesaw Mountain, making them of even more interest to me. They are down right weird in the best kind of way, and they offer incredible commentary on the experience of men at war. Many readers will be familiar with "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" because it is so commonly anthologized. While it's good, I feel it has unduly stolen the spotlight from some of the stronger stories in the collection.
  
  Best stories in the collection:
  An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
  A Son of the Gods
  Killed at Resaca
  The Affair at Coulter's Notch
  The Story of Conscience
• 
  Googoogjoob

  This volume compiles most of Bierce's Civil War stories from the collection Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, plus two seemingly-only-lightly-fictionalized reminiscences of his own war service.
  
  Bierce's writing is vivid, and he's observant and attentive to detail in ways that create a great feeling of verisimilitude- he wasn't just a talented writer, he was himself there. Most of these stories could be boiled down to one-page anecdotes, but Bierce's skill with character and theme elevates them to the status of finely-worked miniatures; his treatments of even the most cliched themes (sometimes-literally fratricidal war, the David/Uriah topos of an ill-intentioned commander) are satisfying.
  
  Bierce focuses on the grim, futile, pathetic aspects of war. There is little or no room for glory or heroism in these stories- usually there's just ignominious death, fast or slow. A dark cloud of impending death and suffering hangs over the stories. Bierce isn't very concerned with politics- and none of his characters ever even question the justness of the war- he's entirely focused on the grotesque, dehumanizing reality of men at war.
  
  Bierce was himself a low-ranking officer in the war, and his stories uniformly give an ant's-eye view of the battles depicted- the protagonists are all civilians, enlisted men, noncoms, or low-ranking commissioned officers, with the highest-ranking protagonists only being Captains (though one story, "The Affair at Coulter's Notch," features a Colonel as its viewpoint character (but not protagonist)). Generals are portrayed as oblivious and uncaring of the suffering of their men at best, and incompetent or malicious at worst.
  
  In many ways these stories remind me of Kurt Vonnegut- the fatalism, the grim, wry humor, the emphasis on the most debasing aspects of war- though Bierce is perhaps less nihilistic in the end.
  
  This book is a very easy recommendation.
• 
  Wayne Walker

  I was born and raised in Ohio, where we studied Ohio History in eighth grade at that time. Because of my interest in the subject, the teacher gave a used copy of an older edition of our textbook, which I still have. In the chapter on “Literature and the Arts,” there was a section on “Later Ohio fiction writers” which said, “Ohio has continued to produce its full share of famous authors,” one of whom was Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914). The following was written about Bierce. “Ambrose Bierce is the author of a limited number of short stories, among which are some of the best ever written by an American. After fighting in the Union Army, Bierce went to San Francisco and became a newspaper editor. He was noted for his biting comments on anything that seemed to him insincere. His column, which won for him the title of ‘Bitter Bierce,’ has had many imitators in modern newspapers.”
  
  Thus, when I saw this book of Civil War Stories by Bierce at the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Park gift shop in Missouri, I picked it up. It contains sixteen short stories about the Civil War taken from The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volumes I and II, published in 1909, most of which come from his book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians of 1891. Some of the titles include "A Horseman in the Sky," "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "Chickamauga," "A Son of the Gods," "What I Saw of Shiloh," "Four Days in Dixie," and "One of the Missing," plus nine more. It does not have one of his most famous Civil War stories, "A Bivouac for the Dead." All of them are filled with the vitriolic wit and biting satire that earned Bierce his nickname. Most of them involve some kind of irony, often with a surprise ending, and a few of them might fall into the category of the macabre, ala Alfred Hitchcock.
  
  Many of the descriptions of the battles are rather graphic, and one story involves a suicide. The “d” and “h” words are use occasionally, along with some taking the Lord’s name in vain (e.g., “my God,” “by God,” “good God”). There is one reference to drinking wine. These dark and vivid tales are not for young children, but teens and adults who are Civil War buffs might appreciate them. A lot of the stories I found interesting, but a few just did not make a great deal of sense to me. In 1913, Bierce, who had become increasingly disenchanted with his own life due to the divorce from his wife and the deaths of his two sons, went to Mexico to meet the revolutionary leader Pancho Villa and to observe firsthand the Civil War there. After a “farewell letter,” nothing more was heard from or about Bierce, and the circumstances of his death remain a mystery. It is generally assumed that he died at the siege of Ojinaga in January of 1914.
• 
  Jackmccullough

  Civil War Stories is a collection of short stories drawn on Ambrose Bierce's experiences as an officer in the Civil War. His writing demonstrates his true respect and admiration for the heroism he saw; contempt for cowardice; his appreciation and, yes, admiration for dedication to duty; and his outrage at the tragedies war brings about. There can be no doubt that this is a powerful antiwar document.
  
  Today if they remember him at all, most people remember Bierce, a well-known journalist and writer in his time, only as the author of The Devil's Dictionary, a satirical compendium of the English language. ("Bore: A person who speaks when you wish him to listen".)
  
  In Civil War Stories we read of Bierce's experiences in the battle of Shiloh, which are every bit as terrifying as you would expect, an unauthorized excursion behind enemy lines, and the simple heroism that seemingly ordinary men exhibit out of a sense of duty. As I said, while he admires their brave actions he never ignores the sometimes tragic consequences of those actions or the unbearable suffering of the common soldiers. For example, from "What I Saw of Shiloh":
  
  "The dense forests wholly or partly in which were fought so many battles of the Civil War, lay upon the earth in each autumn a thick deposit of dead leaves and stems, the decay of which forms a soil of surprising depth and richness. In dry weather the upper stratum is as inflammable as tinder. A fire once kindled in it will spread with a slow, persistent advance as far as local conditions permit, leaving a bed of light ashes beneath which the less combustible accretions of previous years will smolder until extinguished by rains. In many of the engagements of the war the fallen leaves took fire and roasted the fallen men."
  
  These events happened a hundred fifty years ago, yet the modern reader can relate to the dehumanizing experiences of Bierce's soldiers, even though they were engaged in an unquestionably justified pursuit. I suspect anyone with modern military experience will also recognize the occasional incompetence and obliviousness to reason of the chain of command and the civilian leadership who like to dabble in military affairs of which they have little understanding.
  
  Written in the nineteenth century, the stories are written in a style that may be slightly distracting, and when read at one sitting Bierce's fondness for the surprise ending can get repetitive. These are the reasons I didn't give him five stars. Definitely worth reading.
• 
  Sparrow .

  The New Journalism of 1971 was originated by Bierce, a super-journalist, back when sublimity was occasionally found in newspapers. (Where were these stories published? I assume in penny papers.)
  
  These fictional realist reports are the step between Hawthorne and O. Henry, sadly forgotten. Maybe these are the best writings about the Fratricidal War? After I finished them, I realized they’re full of ghastly humor. “Studies of Death” is an alternate title – or “47 Varieties of Death.”
  
  Opening at random:
  
  “Filled with amazement and terror by this apparition of a horseman in the sky – half believing himself the chosen scribe of some new Apocalypse, the officer was overcome by the intensity of his emotions; his legs failed him and he fell.”
  
• 
  Drew Martin

  Ambrose Bierce. A literary figure who seems forgotten to most modern readers. Perhaps it’s the time in which he wrote and lived, or the mysterious end to his life. A fate as mysterious as many of the stories he wrote. I won’t give a complete biography, but he lived an interesting life and left the world under remarkable circumstances. I’ll let you, the reader, discover more if you so choose. If you like Poe, Lovecraft, and the Twilight Zone, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy Bierce. He writes with an eloquent style of prose and uses a twist ending in many of his stories. In this review of his collection titled Civil War Stories, my review will be a bit different. Bierce was a Union soldier during the Civil War, and all these stories share the setting. Instead of reviewing the collection as a whole, I’ll write a short review of each individual story in the order they appear. Then I’ll try to sum the collection up at the end...
  
  To read the rest of this review go to
  https://drewmartinwrites.wordpress.co...
• 
  Matthew

  God he's good!!!!Glad this is pared down to a few of his best - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is as good as they say! His ideas on death are complex and almost contradictory. Crazy coincidences crop up often and are a definite motif .And the horror in his stories still stands up today- the description of the retreating wounded soldiers at Chicamauga was insane. I'm still thinking about the extraordinary circumstances his characters are placed. Loved the story Parker Addison, Philosopher as well. I'll reread this someday...
• 
  Ridgewalker

  This book was very well written and provides a wonderful view into the human aspect of the men on the side of the North that were in the battle. The formula surprise ending used in many of the stories can easily be forgiven because of the language and wit of the author. This is not a history book and does nothing to cover the battles, movement of troops or anything that you might have studied in school. It puts you in the shoes of an officer and tells you a story. This was a pleasure to read.
• 
  Sean Chick

  Bierce is a strange beast. Some of the stories are flat and all are predictable: the "hero" will die. Bierce though has a touch for the dark ironic twist, an ear for dialogue, and is at his best when waxing philosophical. That being said he is a "realist" and the best work is that which is autobiographical, such as the peerless What I Saw At Shiloh.
• 
  Steve Wang

  As bitter and nihilistic as it is elegantly written.
• 
  Esteban Galarza

  Es la primera vez que abordo un libro entero de Ambrose Bierce. Su nombre siempre aparecía en antologías de cuentos o en genealogías que leía sobre autores del siglo XIX que habían cultivado un tipo particular de cuento. Tamaña y grata sorpresa me llevé al leerlo porque creo que acabo de conocer a uno de esos autores que leeré, releeré y citaré por siempre como parte del canon literario personal.
  Cuentos de la Guerra Civil son el eslabón que necesitaba para entender en qué momento la violencia más cruda golpeó a la ficción estadounidense. Ya sabemos que William Faulkner no salió de la nada y la corriente literaria del stream of conciousness no lo abarca del todo bien ni con suficiente justicia. Acá está uno de sus antecesores para trazar una trama de una historia de la violencia en Estados Unidos (Sergio Leone luego lo filmaría). Y los cuentos, a diferencia de la nouvelle de Stephen Crane La roja insignia del valor, está escritos desde la experiencia directa del soldado Bierce que sobrevivió a los 5 años de la guerra civil. Y en el entramado de los cuentos se vislumbra una mirada que aún Estados Unidos, en su inmensa ceguera mesiánica, no ve: que no fue un conflicto para abolir la esclavitud, sino que la masacre fue por el choque de dos modelos económicos que tenían como fin último la explotación más rentable de miles de hombres frente al capitalismo.
  Podríamos decir que esta es la primera gran guerra que nace de una crisis directa del capitalismo. en 1914 y en adelante las guerras tendrían su génesis en este modelo económico horrendo, pero no puedo imaginarme lo espantoso que habrá sido para esos hombres chocarse con esa novedad: armas sofisticadas, veloces, anónimas que mataban de forma industrial, políticas que avasallaban a la población civil, que se metían en lo más íntimo de los hogares y esta vez la guerra no era un campo de batalla aislado sino que todo era una gran tierra arrasada. Ambrose Bierce nos habla de todo esto, del imposible honor de vecinos masacrándose con lo que encuentran y de políticos y empresarios que se horrorizan con soldados que no saben matarse entre sí como si estuviesen en un desfile militar en honor a ellos.
  Dios, creo que si empezase a escribir qué me gustó de este libro no acabaría más y terminaría por aburrir a mis lectores. Lean esta colección de cuentos con la mayor concepción posible, es decir, como documentos históricos y como ficción, como filosofía y teoría sobre la guerra moderna. Bierce tomó ejemplo de ello en vida y su cuerpo terminó en algún lugar de México cuando comenzaba la Revolución Mexicana. Se lo tragó la guerra, aunque es difícil discernir cuál de todas.
• 
  Jeremy Anderberg

  "Bitter Bierce" is one of the more interesting characters in American literary history. He served the Union in the Civil War, including the brutal Battle of Shiloh — an experience which understandably scarred him, but also provided fuel for some of the most poignant, realistic stories on the Civil War ever penned.
  
  While Ambrose wrote a variety of short stories (most in the horror/fantastical realm), novels, journalism, and hybrid pieces — like the remarkably witty Devil's Dictionary — his greatest work, in my opinion, are the Civil War stories collected here. While two of the pieces are short non-fiction remembrances of his wartime experience, the rest are fictional pieces that almost always have some sort of twisty ending.
  
  The real strength of Bierce is in capturing the consciousness of soldiers — their fears, worries, courage; their grappling with death, their camaraderie, their innocence and, eventually, their lack thereof.
  
  A few of the stories truly made my jaw drop at the end, either in the form of an unexpected conclusion, or simply an incredibly raw depiction of the sadness and weariness of war.
  
  I also read a handful of Bierce's other work, and while some of the other stories are good, none approach the power of the 16 found here. While "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is his most famous story, I found "A Horseman in the Sky," "Chickamauga," and "One of the Missing" to be even more affecting. (All can be read for free online.)
  
  All the stories can be read in under 10 minutes or so. If you're looking for a fright during this autumnal season, Bierce's collection offers a hefty dose, with perhaps too much realism; there's no need for the supernatural when the horrors of war are enough to bring a chill to your bones.
• 
  Stephen Heiner

  This is a wonderful collection of short stories in which Bierce uses the War Between the States to frame reflections on family, love and loss, memory, and of course, war and battle.
  
  Almost all American schoolchildren will have read "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," which is well worth the price of admission, but there are equal if not better stories within these pages. Don't read more than two or three at a time. Let the tales linger with you.
  
  "These tents were constantly receiving the wounded, yet were never full; they were continually ejecting the dead, yet were never empty." (p. 7)
  
  "O days when all the world was beautiful and strange; when unfamiliar constellations burned in the Southern midnights, and the mocking-bird poured out his heart in the moon-gilded magnolia; when there was something new under a new sun; will your fine, far memories ever cease to lay contrasting pictures athwart the harsher features of this later world, accentuating the ugliness of the longer and tamer life?" (p. 17)
  
  "His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth." (p. 37)
  
  "As the unfortunate soldier knelt beside that masterwork of civil war the shrilling bird upon the bough overhead stilled her song and, flushed with sunset's crimson glory, glided silently away through the solemn spaces of the wood. At roll-call that evening in the Federal camp the name William Grayrock brought no response, nor ever again thereafter." (p. 123)
• 
  Ellis Knox

  With every review, someone had to mention he was known as "bitter Bierce" but I found him more ironic than bitter. He loved to have a character be unknowingly killed by a former benefactor, or for a villain to perform a good deed, and so on. I think today he'd be called realistic.
  
  Short story writers do not benefit, I think, from being collected. Their stories do better when we encounter them at intervals, in various magazines--in other words, in the context for which they were written. Reading these stories in quick succession does tend to make one notice repetition (that boy was fond of the word "acclivity"), and this lessens the impact of each story. If you get this book, try reading no more than one story a month, with other reading in between.
  
  All that said, the writing is a marvel, particularly in two respects. One is that realism. Some of his descriptions of dead bodies are horrifying, even at this long remove. He doesn't linger; the effect is more that of a jump scare in a movie, a sudden close-up that leaves you shaken.
  
  Balancing these moments are wonderfully funny lines. Most are sardonic, and it helps to know the temper of the times, but boy howdy he gets off some zingers. His writing is the sort where you lean forward into the text, eager for the next vivid image or memorable vignette. Bierce does not keep the reader waiting.
  
• 
  Mary Soon Lee

  This slim book contains, as the title suggests, short stories about the American Civil War, several of which appear to be memoirs rather than fiction. Bierce fought in the war on the Union side. Although I have read a number of Civil War books, I think this is the first that was written by a veteran of that war. (Shame on me.)
  
  The sixteen short stories form a striking and illuminating set; honest, at times brutally so, about the gore and the cost of war, yet allowing improbabilities when it serves the narrative. Individually, the stories are very strong. Collectively, their similarities in tone and storytelling technique made them slightly less effective. I anticipated turns in the tales, some of which might otherwise have surprised me. I read the book, intermittently, over six weeks, but maybe should have stretched it out longer.
  
  It is hard to single out a favorite story, but I particularly liked "Four Days in Dixie," which appears to be autobiographical, and which uses humor to offset the terrible plight in which the narrator finds himself.
  
  Highly recommended.
  
• 
  Bob

  I first learned of Bierce through the dramatization of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge on The Alfred Hitchcock Presents television show in the early 1960s; Kurt Vonnegut once called that tale "the greatest American short story", and it remains one of my all time favorite stories. This collection of Bierce's Civil War stories (including Occurence) is absolutely magnificent, breath-taking, horrifying: a personalized, insider's view of the horrors of war in the 19th century, when the killing was mostly up close and very personal, and brothers and friends killed each other. The history of the Civil War is often told in cold, impersonal and statistical facts; here, Bierce describes it from the perspective of the people who fought and died. A great read.