Ambrose Bierce

John Mortonson was dead, and his body rested in a fine mahogany coffin fitted with a plate of glass. His face was not disagreeable to look upon, and his death had been painless. At two o'clock in...

The President has appointed you a brigadier-general of volunteers and has directed you to report to Major-General Wardorg at Louisville. He has also appointed his son Jabez Leonidas Doke as...

Lieutenant Herman Brayle was one of the two aides-de-camp, and the best soldier of our staff. He would not take cover, and would walk quietly away on his perilous errand with never a stoop of the...

Moxon's devotion to study and work in his machine-shop had not been good for him, as I suspected, because he took his favourite form of counter-interrogation. Moxon was speaking with unusual...

WILD cat was listening to the melody of distant hounds tracking a remote fox. She shinned up a tree as the dogs burst into view below her and stifled their songs upon the body of their victim...

After murdering a man, I was arrested and put upon trial. I made the following statement but simply instructed the jury to acquit, and left the court without a stain upon my reputation. Uncle...

Boffer Bings was born of honest parents in one of the humbler walks of life, but frequently had to carry away the debris of my mother's work in the studio, and his father's business of making...

In 1861, a brigade of raw troops was pushed across the Ohio border and found itself at Cheat Mountain Pass, holding a road that ran from Nowhere to the southeast. They soon subdued the...

General Cameron and the commander of the battery sat in their saddles and watched the fighting of the day before. The army's weapons seemed to share its military delinquency. On that dismal...

Captain Graffenreid stood at the head of his company, which was in line-of-battle, awaiting attack or preparation to deliver it. He had an unobstructed outlook toward the enemy. Captain Graffenreid...

Jerome Searing, a private soldier of General Sherman's army, crept onward, taking advantage of every accident of ground and growth to give himself better cover. He cautiously raised his head and...

Parker Adderson smiled, but did not communicate it to the other persons exposed to it. The general finished writing, folded the half-sheet of paper and spoke to the soldier guarding Adderson. He...