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    What I Saw of Shiloh -The Memories and Experiences of Ambrose Bierce During the American Civil War
    What I Saw of Shiloh -The Memories and Experiences of Ambrose Bierce During the American Civil War
    What I Saw of Shiloh -The Memories and Experiences of Ambrose Bierce During the American Civil War
    Ebook73 pages51 minutes

    What I Saw of Shiloh -The Memories and Experiences of Ambrose Bierce During the American Civil War

    By Ambrose Bierce

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    About this ebook

    Ambrose Bierce was one of the most famous writers in the world at the turn of the 20th century, a vocal and passion critic and probably best known for his works centred on the American civil war, of which he served in. Here is a collection of Bierce's finest work on the topic, including his first hand accounts of the horror and futility of the fighting and his marvellous short stories inspired by what he witnessed.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateMar 31, 2016
    ISBN9781473360259
    What I Saw of Shiloh -The Memories and Experiences of Ambrose Bierce During the American Civil War
    Author

    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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      Book preview

      What I Saw of Shiloh -The Memories and Experiences of Ambrose Bierce During the American Civil War - Ambrose Bierce

      1.png

      What I Saw of Shiloh

      The Memories and Experiences of

      Ambrose Bierce During the

      American Civil War

      Copyright © 2016 Read Books Ltd.

      This book is copyright and may not be

      reproduced or copied in any way without

      the express permission of the publisher in writing

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Contents

      Ambrose Bierce

      What I Saw of Shiloh

      I

      II

      III

      IV

      V

      VI

      VII

      VIII

      IX

      X

      XI

      XII

      Four Days in Dixie

      The Crime at Pickett’s Mill

      A Little of Chickamauga

      On Black Soldiering

      A Bivouac of the Dead

      Ambrose Bierce

      Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born in Meigs County, Ohio, United States in 1842. He was the tenth of thirteen children, and left home aged fifteen to become a ‘printer’s devil’ (a printing apprentice) at a small Ohio newspaper. Bierce fought in the American Civil War, working as a topographical engineer and even reaching the rank of brevet major before resigning from the Army to settle in San Francisco. During the 1870s and 1880s, he worked on a variety of newspapers, even spending three years in England, and famously helped quash a bill which would have put the cost of the First Transcontinental Railroad on the American people instead of the railroad companies.

      Through his newspaper output – including one of the first regular columns in William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner – Bierce developed a famous reputation for searing criticism and acerbic wit, even earning the nickname ‘Bitter Bierce’. His satirical reference book, The Devil’s Dictionary, which lampooned cant and political doublespeak – Corporation (n.) An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility

      – remains widely read today. However, Bierce is critically best remembered for his fiction. Indeed, many of his short stories – such as ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’, ‘The Boarded Window’, ‘Killed at Resaca’ and ‘Chickamauga’, all of which are penned in ‘Pure English’ – are held among the best of the 19th century. Bierce’s writings are also generally regarded as some of the best war writings of all time.

      Bierce’s death was a mysterious one, which continues to intrigue people to this day: In October 1913, aged 71, Bierce left Washington, D.C., for a tour of his old Civil War battlefields. He got as far as the Mexican city of Chihuahua, where he wrote a letter to a close friend, dated 26th December, 1913, in which he said I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination. After this he vanished, becoming one of the most famous disappearances in American literary history.

      What I Saw of Shiloh

      First published in 1881.

      I

      This is a simple story of a battle; such a tale as may be told by a soldier who is no writer to a reader who is no soldier.

      The morning of Sunday, the sixth day of April, 1862, was bright and warm. Reveille had been sounded rather late, for the troops, wearied with long marching, were to have a day of rest. The men were idling about the embers of their bivouac fires; some preparing breakfast, others looking carelessly to the condition of their arms and accoutrements, against the inevitable inspection; still others were chatting with indolent dogmatism on that never-failing theme, the end and object of the campaign. Sentinels paced up and down the confused front with a lounging freedom of mien and stride that would not have been tolerated at another time. A few of them limped unsoldierly in deference to blistered feet. At a little distance in rear of the stacked arms were a few tents out of which frowsy-headed officers occasionally peered, languidly calling to their servants to fetch a basin of water, dust a coat or polish a scabbard. Trim young mounted orderlies, bearing dispatches obviously unimportant, urged their lazy nags by devious ways amongst the men, enduring with unconcern their good-humored raillery, the penalty of superior station. Little negroes of not very clearly defined status and function lolled on their stomachs, kicking their long, bare heels in the sunshine, or slumbered peacefully, unaware of the practical waggery prepared by white hands for their undoing.

      Presently the flag hanging limp and lifeless at headquarters was seen to lift itself spiritedly from the staff. At the same instant was heard a dull, distant sound like the heavy breathing of some great animal below the horizon. The flag had lifted its head to listen. There was a momentary lull in the hum of the human swarm; then, as the flag drooped the hush passed away. But there were some hundreds more men on their feet than before; some thousands of hearts beating with a quicker pulse.

      Again the flag made a warning sign, and again the breeze bore to our ears the long, deep sighing of iron lungs. The division, as if it had received the sharp word of command, sprang to its feet, and stood in groups at attention. Even the little blacks got up. I have since seen similar effects produced by earthquakes; I am not sure but the ground was trembling then. The mess-cooks, wise in their generation, lifted the steaming camp-kettles off the fire and stood by to cast out.

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