One of the Missing
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In Ambrose Bierce’s short story One of the Missing, an orderly for the Union Army undertakes a scouting mission. Preparing to fire on a retreating army, the structure in which he is hiding is suddenly destroyed by cannon fire. When he comes to, he realizes he is completely pinned under the rubble. Making matters worse his own gun, primed and ready to fire, is coincidentally pointing at his head. This story, which originally appeared in The San Francisco Examiner in 1888, spotlights the caprices of war.
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce was an American writer, critic and war veteran. Bierce fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War, eventually rising to the rank of brevet major before resigning from the Army following an 1866 expedition across the Great Plains. Bierce’s harrowing experiences during the Civil War, particularly those at the Battle of Shiloh, shaped a writing career that included editorials, novels, short stories and poetry. Among his most famous works are “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” “The Boarded Window,” “Chickamauga,” and What I Saw of Shiloh. While on a tour of Civil-War battlefields in 1913, Bierce is believed to have joined Pancho Villa’s army before disappearing in the chaos of the Mexican Revolution.
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