Short Story: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, 1890

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by American writer and poet Ambrose Bierce is the poignant and haunting tale of Peyton Farquhar, a well-to-do planter and slave owner sentenced to hang by Union soldiers for attempting to sabotage a railroad bridge in northern Alabama during the Civil War.

Farquhar, described as a secessionist and an ardent supporter of the Southern cause, is minutes away from being executed on the bridge. But just as the noose tightens around his neck, he has an epiphany of sorts—an intense vision of escaping his captors, falling into the river below, swimming against the currents and bullets, reaching the opposite bank and tearing through the woods to finally make it home, to his wife and children.

One can assume that Ambrose Bierce, a Civil War veteran, draws from his own experience to paint a vivid picture of Farquhar’s illusory run for freedom—and, in many ways, his desperate, real-life, yearning to survive the war and go back to a normal life with his family. In that sense, the author masterfully—and poetically—blurs the line between reality and imagination.

This may sound simplistic on my part, but I couldn’t help thinking that An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is as much a story about the tragic plight of Peyton Farquhar, the soldier, as it is about the brutality and futility of war—in fact, all wars. There is no dignity on the battlefield, neither in victory nor in death. That’s how I interpret the story and its ending.

A truly well-crafted and thought-provoking story. One I will be sure to read again in the future.

Post-story, I read that An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was originally published by The San Francisco Examiner in July 1890, and was part of Ambrose Bierce's book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians a year later. It is considered to be one of the most famous and frequently anthologised stories in American literature. The short story has also been adapted for film and television.