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Title: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Author: Ambrose Bierce

Release date: December 1, 1995 [eBook #375]
Most recently updated: April 25, 2022

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/375

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN
OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE ***

An Occurrence at Owl
Creek Bridge

by Ambrose Bierce

THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION, 1988

I

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down
into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his
back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was
attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level
of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the
railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners—two private
soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may
have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary
platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain.
A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position
known as “support,” that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the
hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest—a formal
and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not
appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the
center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot
planking that traversed it.
Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight
away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view.
Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream
was open ground—a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree
trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which
protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway
up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators—a single
company of infantry in line, at “parade rest,” the butts of their rifles on the
ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder,
the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line,
the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right.
Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved.
The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels,

facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge.
The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his
subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes
announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by
those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and
fixity are forms of deference.
The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-
five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit,
which was that of a planter. His features were good—a straight nose, firm
mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight
back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He
wore a moustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large
and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have
expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar
assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds
of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.
The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside
and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The
sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately
behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements
left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the
same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end
upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This
plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held
by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step
aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two
ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgement as simple and
effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a
moment at his “unsteadfast footing,” then let his gaze wander to the
swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of
dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the
current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!
He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and
children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists
under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the
piece of drift—all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a

new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was sound
which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic
percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil; it had
the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether
immeasurably distant or near by— it seemed both. Its recurrence was
regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each new
stroke with impatience and—he knew not why—apprehension. The
intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became
maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength
and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he
would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. “If I could free
my hands,” he thought, “I might throw off the noose and spring into the
stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously,
reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank
God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the
invader’s farthest advance.”
As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed
into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded
to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.

II

Peyton Farquhar was a well to do planter, of an old and highly respected
Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a
politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to
the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is
unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with that
gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the
fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the
release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for
distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in
wartime. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for
him to perform in the aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to
undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a
soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented
to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and
war.
One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench
near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and
asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him
with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband
approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the
front.
“The Yanks are repairing the railroads,” said the man, “and are getting
ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it
in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued
an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught
interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily
hanged. I saw the order.”
“How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?” Farquhar asked.

“About thirty miles.”
“Is there no force on this side of the creek?”
“Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel
at this end of the bridge.”
“Suppose a man—a civilian and student of hanging—should elude the
picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel,” said Farquhar,
smiling, “what could he accomplish?”
The soldier reflected. “I was there a month ago,” he replied. “I observed
that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against
the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like
tinder.”
The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked
her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later,
after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction
from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.

III

As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost
consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was
awakened—ages later, it seemed to him—by the pain of a sharp pressure
upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies
seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body
and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of
ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They
seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable
temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of
fullness—of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought.
The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to
feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in
a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without
material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a
vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about
him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in
his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he
knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was
no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already
suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the
bottom of a river!—the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes
in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how
inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter
until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he
knew that he was rising toward the surface—knew it with reluctance, for he
was now very comfortable. “To be hanged and drowned,” he thought, “that
is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not
fair.”

He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised
him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention,
as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the
outcome. What splendid effort!—what magnificent, what superhuman
strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms
parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the
growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the
other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it
fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. “Put it
back, put it back!” He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the
undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet
experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire, his heart, which
had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his
mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable
anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They
beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the
surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his
chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his
lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a
shriek!
He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed,
preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his
organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of
things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard
their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of
the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf
—he saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies,
the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the
prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The
humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the
beating of the dragon flies’ wings, the strokes of the water spiders’ legs, like
oars which had lifted their boat—all these made audible music. A fish slid
along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.
He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the
visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and
he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the
sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against

the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain
had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their
movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.
Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly
within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a
second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a
light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw
the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of
the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye and remembered having read
that gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them.
Nevertheless, this one had missed.
A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was
again looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a
clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and
came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other
sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he
had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that
deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a
part in the morning’s work. How coldly and pitilessly—with what an even,
calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquility in the men—with what
accurately measured interval fell those cruel words:
“Company!… Attention!… Shoulder arms!… Ready!… Aim!… Fire!”
Farquhar dived—dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his
ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley
and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly
flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the
face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged
between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it
out.
As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a
long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream—nearer to
safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods
flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels,
turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again,
independently and ineffectually.

The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming
vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs;
he thought with the rapidity of lightning:
“The officer,” he reasoned, “will not make that martinet’s error a second
time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably
already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge
them all!”
An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud,
rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back through the
air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its
deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded
him, strangled him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he
shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the
deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was
cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.
“They will not do that again,” he thought; “the next time they will use a
charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise
me—the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good
gun.”
Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round—spinning like a top.
The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men, all
were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors
only; circular horizontal streaks of color—that was all he saw. He had been
caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and
gyration that made him giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon
the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream—the southern bank—
and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The
sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel,
restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand,
threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like
diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did
not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a
definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A
strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the
wind made in their branches the music of AEolian harps. He had not wish to

perfect his escape—he was content to remain in that enchanting spot until
retaken.
A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head
roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random
farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged
into the forest.
All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest
seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a
woodman’s road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There
was something uncanny in the revelation.
By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famished. The thought of his wife
and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he
knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street,
yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not
so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black
bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the
horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he
looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking
unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were
arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The
wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which—once, twice,
and again—he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.
His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen.
He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes
felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with
thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth
into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue—
he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!
Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for
now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a
delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all
bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the
entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk,
he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and
sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps
she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless

grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forwards with
extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the
back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound
like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!
Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently
from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.

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