Ambrose Bierce

What I Saw at Shiloh Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce wrote realistically of the terrible things he had seen in the war in such stories as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", "A Horseman in the Sky", "One of the Missing", "What I Saw at Shiloh" and "Chickamauga". His grimly realistic cycle of 25 war stories has been called "the greatest anti-war document in American literature". At Shiloh, Bierce was a sergeant in C Company of the 9th Indiana in General Buell's army. "What I Saw of Shiloh", written in 1874 and twice revised in the following 35 years, is a recollection of his experience of the battle. Some scholars think "What I Saw of Shiloh" is Bierce's best work.