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Essay on Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842-1914)- American newspaper columnist, satirist, essayist, short-story writer, and novelist, an enigmatic figure, who disappeared in the Mexican Revolution. His end is still a mystery, but he is presumed to have died in the siege of Ojinega on 11 January 1914. Bierce is best known for his numerous short stories collected in Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891). Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was a friend and a rival of Mark Twain.
Bierce was born in Meigs County, Ohio, as the tenth of thirteen children of Marcus and Laura Bierce. Bierce's father had a large private library, and he spent much time with the books. Bierce grew up on a farm in northern Indiana. Bierce studied a year in a high school. At the age of fifteen he became a printer's apprentice on The Northern Indianan, an antislavery paper. After a term at a military school, he worked in a combination store and café.
In 1861 Bierce enlisted in the army. During the American Civil War he served until 1865 in the Union Army - an experience that was crucial for his life and career as a writer. He fought in several battles including Shiloh and the one that later provided the setting for 'Chickamauga' (1889), one of his best stories.
What he saw and experienced in the war had the most profound effect on Bierce. In addition to the harsh realities of war, Bierce's engagement to childhood sweetheart Bernice ("Fatima") Wright was broken off during the war. After his injury from Kennesaw Mountain made him unfit for military service, Bierce served briefly as a Treasury aide in Alabama. He undertook a tour of Western forts and then quit the army after he felt slighted by only earning a second lieutenant's commission. He was a topographical officer on General William B. Hazen's staff, and then settled in San Francisco, where he began his journalistic career....
