An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a short story by Ambrose Bierce and first published in 1890.

Peyton Farquhar is a wealthy landowner and slave owner who is sentenced to be executed in Alabama during the American Civil War. Six soldiers guard him on the bridge where the sentence will be carried out. He thinks of his family and tries to figure out a way to jump off the bridge and swim away, but the soldiers drop him before he carries out his idea.

The main theme of this short story is that there is no romance or glory in war. The story is known for its irregular time sequence and unexpected ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear storytelling in favor of the inner mind of the protagonist is an early example of the stream-of-consciousness narrative mode. It is often described as one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature.

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below.

First published in the San Francisco Examiner, July 13, 1890.