A Horseman in the Sky

Ambrose Bierce drew from personal experience for “A Horseman in the Sky.” He enlisted with Union forces days after the outbreak of the war and participated in many heated engagements, including the Battle of Shiloh. He was distinguished for bravery during his service and at one point even survived a gunshot wound to the head. His intimacy with the horrors and banalities of combat informs his realist, anti-Romantic view of war in “A Horseman in the Sky,” where the main character is introduced asleep at post rather than engaged in acts of valor.

The Civil War (1861-1865) pitted Union forces of the northern states against the secessionist Confederate forces of the South. The tragedy of this conflict, which sometimes saw close relations and friends taking arms against one another, appears throughout Bierce’s war fiction. In “A Horseman in the Sky,” it manifests in the choice the protagonist must make whether to endanger his comrades or kill his father.

A distinguished career in journalism on the West Coast followed Bierce’s time in the military. Though remembered now mostly for his short stories, which included gothic tales of the paranormal in addition to his Civil War stories, Bierce was famous in his time as a biting social, political, and cultural critic, columnist, and author of epigrams.