The Bierces: Ambrose and Lucius Quiz

Answer: Uncle and nephew

Lucius was Ambrose's uncle. Ambrose deeply admired and was greatly influenced by Lucius Verus Bierce for his idealism, oratory, political service, and social activism. Ambrose regarded Uncle Lucius as a true role model and held himself to that standard.

Answer: American Civil War

Even though he was 62 years old at the time, Lucius became Adjutant General of the Ohio Volunteers on May 5, 1863 to Nov. 11, 1865. His role was minor, more of an advisor or planner.

Ambrose on the other hand was a front line soldier, fighting in some of the famous and horrific battles such as Shiloh, Corinth, Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and Franklin. He served as a lieutenant under General W. B. Hazen. He showed skills as a scout and in preparing maps prior to engagement.

At Kennesaw Mountain in 1864, Bierce suffered a gunshot wound to his head and was hospitalized for months. Because of bouts of dizziness and blackouts, he was forced to resign in early 1865. Of all the major writers who wrote about the Civil War, Ambrose Bierce experienced it most completely.

Answer: Akron

In 1838 he was elected mayor of Akron and was re-elected four more times. During his terms as mayor, he donated land, books, and collections to establish the University of Akron, wrote a history of Summit County, and raised a private army. The library at the University of Akron is named for him.

Answer: To free Canada from British rule

Bierce believed that Canada needed to be free from the yoke of British rule. He gathered a group of about five hundred men including Canadian expatriates, the unemployed, adventurers, and with men of similar views and attempted to invade Canada. The effort is sometimes referred to as the "Patriot War".

Although the Patriot War had several aspects, it was never endorsed by the United States government. Bierce contended that the 500 were not sufficient for a full scale attack; he and a small group entered Windsor, Canada and left the bulk of the troops in bivouac a few miles away. On December 3, they had seized the steamboat Champlain and set fire to the barracks at Windsor. The British were not pleased to see Bierce. His proposal that Canadians should join him in expelling the British fell on deaf ears. The British moved swiftly on the intruders and twenty one Patriots were killed and twenty-four arrested. Some were tried and sent to prison in Tasmania.

Bierce escaped across the river to Detroit. The American government moved to prevent further actions. The Patriot volunteers passed resolutions rebuking the US government for taking arms against its own people but the Patriot War was over. Bierce faced a trial for his participation but was acquitted as public sentiment considered him a hero.

Answer: John Brown

Bierce raised funds for John Brown and supplied him with arms. He was impressed by the use of force against slave holders.

Upon hearing of the hanging of John Brown, Bierce remarked:

"The tragedy of Brown's is freighted with awful lessons and consequences. It is like the clock striking the fatal hour that begins a new era in the conflict with slavery. Men like Brown may die, but their acts and principles will live forever. Call it fanaticism, folly, madness, wickedness, but until virtue becomes fanaticism, divine wisdom folly, obedience to God madness, and piety wickedness, John Brown, inspired with these high and holy teachings, will rise up before the world with his calm, marble features, most terrible in death and defeat, than in life and victory. It is one of those acts of madness which history cherished and poetry loves forever to adorn with her choicest wreaths of laurel."

Answer: San Francisco

In San Francisco Ambrose Bierce began to hone his craft as a writer. He began to submit observations, essays, and stories to established publications. Finally, he developed a column he called "Prattle" where he was free to express his cynicism, satiric wit, and creativity. His fame spread from this locality to an imported favorite not just in the United States but beyond international borders. William Randolph Hearst, owner of "The San Francisco Enquirer", recognized Bierce's potential and hired him as a columnist where he worked for nearly twenty years until assigned to Washington D.C., where he followed the political scene up close and with same cynical eye.

Late in his career he assembled the best of his writings that covered twelve volumes.

Answer: Railroad

The railroad industry developed an ingenious plot with Congress through manipulation and possible bribery to forgive loans for construction of railroads. The amount was 130 million dollars or 3 billion in today's economy. Bierce uncovered the plan and began to write extensively on the bill that Congress was attempting to pass.

Collis P. Huntington of the Union and Pacific Railroad confronted Bierce and asked 'what his price was'. Bierce is reported to have replied "My price is one hundred thirty million dollars. If, when you are ready to pay, I happen to be out of town, you may hand it over to my friend, the Treasurer of the United States". The bill was defeated.

Bierce was also a poet, often writing under the pressure of a newspaper deadline. Commenting on the assassination of Governor William Goebel of Kentucky, he wrote:

"The bullet that pierced Goebel's breast
Can not be found in all the West;
Good reason, it is speeding here
To stretch McKinley on his bier."

He was blamed for approving the assassination of William McKinley. The poem is dated 1900. McKinley was shot in 1901. Bierce was suggesting that McKinley's policies might be the cause of unrest: he was not calling for his death.

Answer: The Devil's Dictionary

"The Devil's Dictionary" is one of the most quoted books in the English language. Here Bierce's cynical view of the world becomes most apparent. Here are a few:

Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.

Cynic: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.

Religion: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Editor: A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.

Conservative: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others."

Answer: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

The story recounts the last few seconds of consciousness before death descends.
Critic Clifton Fadiman said "Bierce was never a great writer. He has painful faults of vulgarity and cheapness of imagination. But... his style, for one thing, will preserve him; and the purity of his misanthropy, too, will help to keep him alive"

We must appreciate that journalists often work to tight deadlines thus critics see a certain rhythm in his short stories. Many of them end abruptly with a mysterious forces intervening or with an illogical twist. Bierce's short stories are best appreciated in small doses.

"Owl Creek" is the only of the choices written by Bierce. "Rip Van Winkle" is by Washington Irving, "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" by Nathanial Hawthorne, and "The Luck of Roaring Camp" by Bret Harte.

Answer: No one really knows

Bierce wrote to his niece just before he left for Mexico: "If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a gringo in Mexico -- ah, that is euthanasia".

In a 2014 "Paris Review" is an article by Forrest Gander entitled "Very Trustworthy Witnesses" Gander made a survey of all the places in Mexico that lay claim to be the death place of Bierce. However, none of them have any hard evidence to support that assertion.

Texas writer Leon Day spent literally years searching Mexico for clues on Bierce's death but ended up empty-handed.

Carlos Fuentes's novel "The Old Gringo"(1985) is a fictionalized speculation of what might have occurred. In 1989 "Old Gringo" came to the screen with Gregory Peck as Bierce and with Jimmy Smits and Jane Fonda as co-stars.

One critic said that even if Bierce's literary output does not make him a memorable writer, his mysterious disappearance will preserve his fame.