Phantoms of a Blood-stained Period: The Complete Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce - Tapa blanda

Alone among important American writers, Ambrose Bierce fought for four years in the Civil War. The writings he produced about that conflict comprise a body of work unique in merican literature. This volume gathers virtually everything Bierce wrote about the war, from letters composed on the field of battle to maps he drew as a topographical engineer, from his masterful short stories to his final bittersweet ruminations before he disappeared into Mexico in 1914. The collection is organized chronologically, following Bierce's participation in a wide range of battles, from the early skirmishes in the West Virginia mountains to the bloodbaths at Shiloh and Chickamauga and his near fatal wounding at Kennesaw Mountain. His overlapping accounts of these events provide a clear and compelling record of the sights and sounds of the battlefield, the psychological traumas the war induced in its soldiers, and the memories that would haunt survivors for the rest of their lives. In prose that anticipates the work of Ernest Hemingway and Tim O'Brien, Bierce's writings unflinchingly tell the truth about the war. The volume includes a biographical introduction and comprehensive notes on all the writings and is suitable for classroom adoption and general readers alike.

Russell Duncan is a professor of history in the English Institute at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the author of several books, including "First Person Past: American Autobiographies", "Freedom's Shore: Tunis Campbell and the Georgia Freedmen" (Georgia), and "Entrepreneur for Equality: Governor Rufus Bullock, Commerce, and Race in Post-Civil War Georgia" (Georgia).

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.