An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign.

The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right.

Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators-a single company of infantry in line, at “parade rest,” the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. The other bank of the stream was open ground-a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view.

It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as “support,” that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest-a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners-two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. I A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce