Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog

In the modern world of DVD, TiVo and streaming online video, there’s increasingly a premium on television and film that has great replay value, something you want to see not just once, but again and again over a long period. More often than not great television shows and movies aren’t driven as much fast-paced action or spectacular scenery, but by the interplay between the characters, usually by dialogue. Dialogue has to to be crisp, it has to be tight, and it has to be believable. Great dialogue makes for great writing, great television, great film, and the best writers, regardless of their medium, have to master it.

Eighteen-year-old Ambrose Gwinett Bierce signed on for a 90-day hitch in the 9th Indiana Infantry in April 1861, and in September that year later re-enlisted as a sergeant. He was promoted to full sergeant major in mid-1862, to second lieutenant in late November, and finally to first lieutenant in February 1863. He was discharged on January 25, 1865. In almost four years of service — all with Company C of the 9th Indiana — he saw heavy fighting at Shiloh, Chickamauga, Stones River, Resaca, and Pickett’s Mill. Bierce received a severe head wound at Kenensaw Mountain in June 1864, and spent several months on medical furlough. Bierce was one of the few American writers of the late 19th century who had experienced combat, and perhaps as a result, he tackled the Civil War both in prose and poetry without the maudlin, romantic lens through which most of his peer viewed the conflict. His “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” first published in 1890, is today considered one of the classic short stories of American literature. But in this Civil War story, “Parker Adderson, Philospoher,” Bierce opens the story with dialogue that almost instantly sets the scene, and establishes the characters:

“Prisoner, what is your name?”

“As I am to lose it at daylight tomorrow morning it is hardly worth while concealing it. Parker Adderson.”

“Your rank?”

“A somewhat humble one; commissioned officers are too precious to be risked in the perilous business of a spy. I am a sergeant.”

“Of what regiment?”

“You must excuse me; my answer might, for anything I know, give you an idea of whose forces are in your front. Such knowledge as that is what I came into your lines to obtain, not to impart.”

“You are not without wit.”

“If you have the patience to wait you will find me dull enough to-morrow.”

“How do you know that you are to die to-morrow morning?”

“Among spies captured by night that is the custom. It is one of the nice observances of the profession.”

The general so far laid aside the dignity appropriate to a Confederate officer of high rank and wide renown as to smile. But no one in his power and out of his favor would have drawn any happy augury from that outward and visible sign of approval. It was neither genial nor infectious; it did not communicate itself to the other persons exposed to it–the caught spy who had provoked it and the armed guard who had brought him into the tent and now stood a little apart, watching his prisoner in the yellow candle-light. It was no part of that warrior’s duty to smile; he had been detailed for another purpose. The conversation was resumed; it was in character a trial for a captial offense.

“You admit, then, that you are a spy–that you came into my camp, disguised as you are in the uniform of a Confederate soldier, to obtain information secretly regarding the numbers and disposition of my troops.”

“Regarding, particularly, their numbers. Their disposition I already knew. It is morose.”

Good stuff here. The full text of “Parker Adderson, Philospher” below the fold:

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