Owl Creek

30 May 2024

‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ is a short story by Ambrose Bierce, first published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1898.

Set during the Civil War, it describes the scene as a man faces death by hanging, for reasons not immediately stated, from Owl Creek Bridge in Northern Alabama.

I know this story only because I have a dim recollection of it being read to our class by a teacher with slightly thespy inclinations, while I was in the process of failing my English Literature ‘O’ Level.

It’s testimony to the construction and vivid precision of the writing that it stuck in my memory for so long, although I had maddeningly forgotten the title. Even the pedantic schoolteacher from Upper Spondon, usually reliable in such matters, had no recollection of it.

When trying to find something to see or do between Memphis and Mussel Shoals, I looked at a site about the Shiloh Military Park in Southern Tennessee. It had a fleeting reference to a ‘famous Civil War short-story set nearby’ along with the title.

On Audible was a free-to-subscriber reading of ‘Occurrence’. And there was the story, as partially remembered for the last 45 years and having lost none of its capacity to build suspense and surprise.

On repeated listenings, Bierce semaphores the ending a few times, but I’m not going to spoil it for you. It’s only a 30-minute read or listen and well worth it.

Bierce is specific in locating Owl Creek to Alabama, and it needs to be for the story to make sense in a historical context. But a quick Googling confirmed it was the Owl Creek in Tennessee that is the setting, as this had both a river and railway line that are pivotal to the narrative.

Further Googling reveals Bierce served at Shiloh for the Union as a topographical engineer, making maps of likely battlefields. This was two years before the story is set, which accounts for his detailed knowledge of the terrain and understanding of the strategic importance of the bridge, both of which are key to the story.

Now, the creek is still there but a nearby dam has reduced the river to a trickle. The railroad is gone and with it, the timber bridge.

A couple of miles away, a low-speed road snakes its way around the 52,000-acre Shiloh National Military Park, with the various fighting divisions individually commemorated. The open fields are referred to, chillingly, as ‘slaying ground’ but it’s mostly forest. The fragmented, close-quarters fighting that took place in this woodland resulted in one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

Finding my way to Mussel Shoals, I end up on the so-called ‘Trail of Tears’. This is a new one on me and an unexpected, late-afternoon, 60-mile bonus of a swaying, tree-lined road with little traffic. It’s the route taken by 60,000 displaced Indian tribes between 1830 & 1850.

Popular wisdom in the UK is the US is a relatively new country with limited history. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m not sure what I was expecting to find at Owl Creek. It’s such a vivid tale, so well executed that has stayed with me for so long, I’d hoped it would be more than it is.

And while it was only ever fiction, it’s the power of stories that makes us who we are. And it gave me something to occupy myself with today.

PS: The author turned out to be just as enigmatic as his fiction. In 1913 he informed friends and colleagues that he intended to travel to Mexico as an observer to the civil war that was raging there. He was never heard of again. The circumstances of his death and whereabouts of his remains are unknown but I like to think his ghost still stalks Owl Creek. Take another look at the photograph at the top of this post…