Phantoms of a Blood-Stained Period: The Complete Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce
Alone among important American writers, Ambrose Bierce fought for four years in the Civil War. The writings he produced about that conflict comprise a body of work unique in our nation's literature. This volume gathers for the first time virtually everything Bierce wrote about the war, from letters composed on the field of battle to maps he drew as a topographical engineer, from his masterful short stories to his final bittersweet ruminations before he disappeared into Mexico in 1914.\ \ The...
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Gathers for the first time in one volume all of Bierce's war writings.William S. McFeelyIt is excellent to have all of Bierce's writings on the Civil War accessible in a single,eminently teachable volume. Bierce writes with great strength and never hides from us the ugliness of war. This book will stand beside such equally powerful works as "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The Things They Carried" in the canon on modern war.
AcknowledgmentsA Note on SourcesAmbrose Bierce on History, Memory, and Literature: "A Sole Survivor"1Introduction: Fighting and Writing the Civil War5Ch. 1Patricide in the House Divided, 186131A Thin Blue Ghost35Battlefields and Ghosts36One Kind of Officer41The Mocking-Bird51A Horseman in the Sky57Defending Realism I63A Tough Tussle65On a Mountain73Jupiter Doke, Brigadier-General78Two Fantastic Fables: Equipped for Service and The Mysterious Word87The Professional Officer88Ch. 2What War Really is, 186289What I Saw of Shiloh93Defending General Buell111Two Military Executions113On Military Executions116An Affair of Outposts117An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge127The Coup de Grace136Ch. 3A True War Story is Never Moral, 1863141Stone's River145A Baffled Ambuscade147On Military Punishments149Three and One Are One150The Affair at Coulter's Notch153Defending Realism II161George Thurston162The Story of a Conscience167Parker Adderson, Philosopher174One Officer, One Man180On Chickamauga186Chickamauga189A Little of Chickamauga195More on Chickamauga200Letter to Colonel Archibald Gracie202General Wood's Command205General Grant and the Poisoned Chalice206Ch. 4War is all Hell, 1864208Bierce's Map of the Battlefield of Resaca211Killed at Resaca212Bierce's Map of the Battlefield of Pickett's Mill218The Crime at Pickett's Mill219On General O. O. Howard230On Prayer in Battle232My Dear Clara233One of the Missing236A Son of the Gods: A Study in the Present Tense247Defending Realism III253Four Days in Dixie255What Occurred at Franklin264On General Schofield271The Body Count at Franklin272The Major's Tale275The Battle of Nashville: An Attack of General Debility282On Black Soldiering284Ch. 5Phantoms of a Blood-Stained Period, 1865 and Later286'Way Down in Alabam'290The Other Lodgers300A Resumed Identity303The Nature of War309Modern Warfare311A'Soldiering for Freedom316The Hesitating Veteran317Invocation319The Death of Grant323Contentment325The Death of General Grant326At a "National Encampment"328On Jefferson Davis's Death330The Confederate Flags332To E. S. Salomon334A Travel Letter to George337A Year's "Casualties"338A Bivouac of the Dead339A Letter from D.C.341Fragments from Last Letters342Alternate Table of Contents344Basic Military Organization347Glossary of Military Terms348
\ Atlantic MonthlyHere is exemplary American prose, and here is the real war -without uplift, without virtue, without purpose.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalIt includes not only all of Bierce's short fiction and nonfiction about the Civil War but a detailed 25 page introduction that is invaluable in placing Bierce in historical context and thus helping to explain his status as a realist about the war and a satirist about post-Civil War American self-congratulation and heroic myth making. Highly recommended.\ \ \ Michael W. SchaeferThe main argument,that Bierce's Civil War writings are undeservedly unknown to all but a small group of specialists,is powerfully borne out by this excellent collection of his work and by the editors' own fine work in placing these pieces in their historical,cultural,and literary contexts. This book makes a highly significant contribution to American literary studies.\ \ \ \ \ William S. McFeelyIt is excellent to have all of Bierce's writings on the Civil War accessible in a single,eminently teachable volume. Bierce writes with great strength and never hides from us the ugliness of war. This book will stand beside such equally powerful works as "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The Things They Carried" in the canon on modern war.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalIn calling Stephen Crane and Walt Whitman our poets of the American Civil War, we unfairly neglect the Ohio-born Bierce, who, unlike the first two authors, actually fought for the Union army, at Chicamauga, Missionary Ridge, Bloody Shiloh, and elsewhere. If the average reader is at all aware of Bierce, it is probably from a few choice definitions from The Devil's Dictionary, the phantasmagoric story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," and the author's mysterious disappearance in Mexico in 1913. However, Bierce, whose nastiness toward contemporary writers and critics came home to roost when his own reputation had to be decided, deserves to be better known. His war experience gives the 27 brief war stories in Shadows of Blue & Gray the ring of authenticity. In a sometimes turgid writing style (slaves are once described, for example, as "sons and daughters of Ham"), Bierce depicts a war that is at once horrifying, pointless, and supernatural the stuff of The Twilight Zone. The nine pieces in "Memoirs and Chronicles" and "Reminiscence and Memoria," with which editor Thomsen fittingly rounds out this volume, are as artful as the fictions. Recommended for all libraries. Despite the strengths of Thomsen's collection, Phantoms of a Blood-Stained Period is a superior work, for it includes not only all of Bierce's short fiction and nonfiction about the Civil War but a detailed 25-page introduction that is invaluable in placing Bierce in historical context and thus helping to explain his stance as a realist about the war and a satirist about post-Civil War American self-congratulation and heroic myth-making. Duncan (American history, Univ. of Copenhagen) and Klooster (English, Hope Coll.) wisely organize Bierce's myriad stories, memoirs, letters, newspaper columns, and even war poems around the war's five-year duration. Instead of a curmudgeon who happened to write war stories, this volume portrays a man who joined the Union army at age 20, fought in the bloodiest battles until a Confederate bullet in the head took him out of combat, and revisited the battlefields and retrieved the experience in memory until his disappearance. Highly recommended for all libraries. Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ BooknewsCombining complete short pieces of fiction and nonfiction with excerpts from longer works, 73 selections express American writer Bierce's (1842-1914?) views of the war. The sections are chronological from 1861 to 1865 and beyond: patricide in the house divided, what war really is, a true war story is never moral, war is all hell, and phantoms of a blood-stained period. Annotations, a list of works by date, a chart of basic military organization, and a glossary of military terms are included. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)\ \
