Born June 24, 1842
Meigs City, Ohio
Died 1913 or 1914
Place of death unknown

Civil War veteran who authored
several short stories about the Civil War

"To this day I cannot look over a landscape without noting the advantages of the ground for attack or defense."

Ambrose Bierce. (Reproduced by permission of Corbis-Bettmann.)

Ambrose Bierce was one of America's best-known writers of the nineteenth century. As a Union soldier during the Civil War, Bierce witnessed the violence and horror of war firsthand. After the war ended, he drew upon those wartime experiences to write a number of popular short stories and essays. In addition, he ranked as one of the country's most famous newspaper columnists during the 1880s and 1890s.

Growing Up in Poverty

Ambrose Bierce was born in southeastern Ohio in 1842, but he spent most of his childhood in Indiana. He was the tenth of thirteen children born...