At the dawn of the 20th Century Ambrose Bierce was one of the most famous writers in America. Even today, his “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is known to readers and media viewers of all ages. He wrote famously for the Hearst newspapers throughout his journalism career which began after his bloody experiences during the Civil War. Indeed, his short stories from that violent combat, in particular, “What I saw at Shiloh” are considered some of the most impressionable and powerful war writings by any American.
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After the war he traveled throughout the American West, first as a soldier, then as a journalist for numerous papers which carried his tales of our burgeoning, opening frontier. Bierce’s stories captured the essence of life in mining camps, roaring San Francisco, and a host of other places. His articles were known, and craved, by a new reading public. He famously wrote “The Devil’s Dictionary,” which with wit and ingenious twists railed against all manner of verbal frauds. As an investigative journalist he pursued hoaxes, political con men and wrong doers relentlessly. Often, his stories were what today we’d call horror stories, psychological thrillers, and mysteries. It is his lifelong interest in mystery that brings him to our attention.
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He wrote a series of horrifying short stories toward the end of the nineteenth century on the theme of disappearance. Disappearance without a clue was a theme of dread. It was suggestive of death itself, a virtually taboo question in those Victorian times. In a story with the benign title, “The Difficulty of Crossing a Field”, a Selma, Alabama, antebellum plantation owner, one Williamson, discussed a horse trade with his neighbor, Armour Wren. After a short talk, Williamson departed across a nearby field. And disappeared. Three witnesses saw him, and the sworn testimony was recorded, except of course for the young black servant whose testimony wasn’t considered.
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In “An Unfinished Race” James Worson wagered he could run forty miles and back. His British neighbors took him up on his drunken bet, and followed at no less than several yards in a cart. At one point, he pitched forward, and was gone. The three credible witnesses could never account for what transpired.  In “Charles Ashmore’s Trail,” young Charles Ashmore of Quincy, Illinois, vanished one snowy evening as he went to get water from the family spring outside. After desperate searches, no one found a trace of him, whose tracks simply stopped in the deep snow. Only his mother, then occasionally others in his family heard the faint but clear voice of Charles. He seemed to call, apparently from a distance not clearly defined, irregularly, for some months thereafter. Then nothing.
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In “Staley Fleming’s Hallucination”, the man Fleming believes he’s ‘a bit loony,’ and tells a doctor. He claims to see a fierce dog in his room at night. After professional preparations at Fleming’s home, the doctor agrees to stay the night. After a shriek, the doctor discovers the complainant dead of an apparent vicious dog bite to the neck. Reference is made to a strange document which avers that as flesh has a spirit, so a spirit can take on flesh, the better to do violence to the living. Bierce records more stories in a similar vein, each more bizarre than the other, but each with a sense of dread that a person can vanish, and no one can account for where, or why.
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