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Ambrose Bierce

(1842 - 1914)

A Baffled Ambuscade

For months after the big battle at Stone River, there was constant quarrel between detachments of cavalry on the turnpike connecting Readyville and Woodbury. One night a squadron of Federal horse...

4 min read · Rating: G · Read story

A Bivouac of the Dead

In the heart of the Allegheny mountains, in Pocahontas county, West Virginia, is a beautiful little valley through which flows the east fork of the Greenbrier river. There is a post office in a...

4 min read · Rating: G · Read story

A Cold Greeting

A man named James H. Conway brought a note of introduction from Mr. Lawrence Barting to Benson Foley, who had known Barting as a captain in the Federal army during the civil war. Conway told Foley...

3 min read · Rating: G · Read story

A Fruitless Assignment

Henry Saylor, who was killed in Covington, was seen by crowds passing by a vacant dwelling in Vine street. Some braver individuals ventured to stand upon the doorsteps to intercept them, but were...

5 min read · Rating: G · Read story

A Holy Terror

There was an entire lack of interest in the latest arrival at Hurdy-Gurdy, but Mr. Doman had another correspondent, Mr. Barney Bree, of Hurdy-Gurdy, who carelessly thrust a letter into a chink of...

26 min read · Rating: PG-13 · Read story

A Lady From Redhorse

CORONADO finds himself more and more interested in Dr. Barritz, and thinks that he is a magician. JULY fears that her remarks about Dr. Barritz must have been there. Mr. Raynor makes a precarious...

12 min read · Rating: G · Read story

A Little of Chickamauga

Chickamauga was a fight for possession of a road. My brigade was relieved and withdrawn to the road to protect several batteries of artillery, which opened fire with grape and canister. The enemy...

9 min read · Rating: PG-13 · Read story

A Man with Two Lives

David William Duck related his queer story as "Dead Duck". In the autumn of 1866, I was traveling by night with important dispatches to Fort C. F. Smith, when I was awakened by the report of a...

5 min read · Rating: G · Read story

An Adventure at Brownville

I taught a little country school near Brownville, which, as every one knows who has had the good luck to live there, is the capital of a considerable expanse of the finest scenery in California.

19 min read · Rating: G · Read story

An Affair of Outposts

Parker Adderson smiled at the spy who provoked him and at the guard who brought him into the tent. The tent was lighted by a tallow candle stuck into a bayonet. The general handed Adderson a...

12 min read · Rating: G · Read story

An Arrest

Orrin Brower of Kentucky, a fugitive from justice, escaped from the county jail by knocking down his jailer with an iron bar, robbing him of his keys and walking out into the night. He got lost in...

3 min read · Rating: G · Read story

An Heiress from Redhorse

I find myself more and more interested in Dr. Barritz, and I fear my remarks about him must have been mistaken. Dr. Barritz called last evening, and Raynor called yesterday. Raynor observed no game...

12 min read · Rating: G · Read story