A review by bobbo49
Civil War Stories by Ambrose Bierce

5.0

I first learned of Bierce through the dramatization of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge on The Alfred Hitchcock Presents television show in the early 1960s; Kurt Vonnegut once called that tale "the greatest American short story", and it remains one of my all time favorite stories. This collection of Bierce's Civil War stories (including Occurence) is absolutely magnificent, breath-taking, horrifying: a personalized, insider's view of the horrors of war in the 19th century, when the killing was mostly up close and very personal, and brothers and friends killed each other. The history of the Civil War is often told in cold, impersonal and statistical facts; here, Bierce describes it from the perspective of the people who fought and died. A great read.