Union soldiers are about to hang a Confederate supporter who intended to burn down the Owl Creek Bridge. Shortly before the string finally broke his neck, he had an illusion, in which he imagined that the rope ripped and he fell into the river and was able to escape from the Union soldiers and to his family back home. When he was about to hug his beautiful wife, he felt a searing pain in his neck and everything went dark. He only completely invented the story of his flight in his mind. This makes the story very dramatic and the author Ambrose Bierce, who was once himself a soldier for the Union army and hated the war, wanted to show by this story how cruel the war was and that even the enemy (the Confederates) have feelings and suffered as well.
Good post. Have you considered, however, why Bierce chose someone from the side of the enemy to hold up as an object of sympathy. I wonder. . .
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