Ambrose Bierce was born in Meigs County, Ohio, in 1842. He was a printer's apprentice but influenced by his uncle, Lucius Bierce, became a strong opponent of slavery. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Lucius Bierce organized and equipped two companies of Marines. Ambrose Bierce joined one of these on April 19, 1861, and two months later became part of the invasion force led by General George McClellan in West Virginia. On April 6, 1862, Albert S. Johnson and Pierre T. Beauregard and 55,000 members of the Confederate Army attacked Grant's army near Shiloh Church in Tennessee. Taken by surprise, Grant's army suffered heavy losses. Bierce was a member of the force led by General Don Carlos Buell that forced the Confederates to retreat. Bierce was deeply shocked by what he saw at Shiloh and after the war wrote several short stories based on this experience. Bierce was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant in November 1862. Two months later he fought at Murfreesboro where he saved the life of his commanding officer, Major Braden, by carrying him to safety after he had been seriously wounded in the fighting. In February 1862 Bierce was commissioned first lieutenant of Company C of the Ninth Indiana. He fought at Chickamuga in September 1863 under General William Hazen. The sight of so many senior officers, including William Rosecrans, fleeing from the battlefield, deeply shocked Bierce. Bierce served under General William Sherman during his Atlanta Campaign. At Resaca on May 14, 1864, Bierce's close friend, Lieutenant Brayle was killed. Two weeks later his regiment suffered heavy losses when attacked by General Joseph Johnson at Pickett's Mill. Bierce was badly wounded at Kennesaw Mountain when he was shot in the head by a musket ball on June 23. After the war Bierce went to California where he became a journalist working for the Overland Monthly. He traveled to England in 1872 and worked for humorous magazines in London such as Figaro and Fun. Bierce returned to the United States in 1875 and over the next twelve years he contributed to a wide variety of different journals. In March, 1887, William Randolph Hearst, recruited Bierce to write a regular humorous article for his San Francisco Examiner. The articles were a great success and Hearst was soon paying Bierce $100 a week to retain his services. In 1891 he published a book of short-stories about the Civil War, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (later revised and republished as In the Midst of Life). Bierce followed this with Can Such Things Be? (1893), Fantastic Fables (1899) and Shapes of Clay (1903). In 1906 Bierce published The Cynic's Word Book (reissued in 1911 as The Devil's Dictionary). As well as working for the San Francisco Examiner, Bierce contributed to journals such as Cosmopolitan, Everybody's, Hampton's Magazine and Pearson's. In 1895 he helped William Randolph Hearst with his campaign against the the railway magnate, Collis Huntington. It is argued that Bierce's articles helped to prevent the growth of Huntington's company, Southern Pacific. Bierce worked from 1909 to 1912 editing his 12 volume Collected Works. In 1913, Bierce traveled to Mexico to gain a firsthand perspective on that country's ongoing revolution. While traveling with rebel troops, the elderly writer disappeared without a trace. It is not known exactly when or how he died but it has been suggested he was killed during the siege of Ojinaga in January 1914. No trace of his body has ever been found.
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