The Life of Bierce

"He has been characterized as great, bitter, idealistic, cynical, morose, frustrated, cheerful, bad, sadistic, obscure, perverted, famous, brutal, kind, a fiend, a God, a misanthrope, a poet, a realist who wrote romances, a fine satirist, and something of a charlatan." -- Carey McWilliams, Ambrose Bierce, A Biography


Ambrose Gwinett Bierce came into this world on June 24, 1842 in Meigs County, Ohio, son of Marcus Aurelius and Laura Sherwood Bierce. He was the youngest of a large brood of children, whom Marcus, for reasons unknown, anointed with names beginning with "A."

Details on his childhood are sketchy. He left his family in 1857 to live in Indiana, working as a "printer's devil" for an abolitionist newspaper. He eventually came to live with uncle Lucius Verus in Ohio, then attended the Kentucky Military Institute for a year before he dropped out. Bierce's family had a history in the military. His grandfather fought in the American Revolution, and Lucius Verus supplied radical abolitionist John Brown with the weapons for his failed uprising as well as leading a people's army to "liberate" Canada from the British.

Ambrose worked odd jobs until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he enlisted with the 9th Indiana volunteers. The Civil War would prove to be the defining episode of his life. Bierce worked primarily as a topographical engineer, his excellent and valiant performance allowing him to rise through the ranks. He fought in several key battles in the war, including Shiloh, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and Kennesaw Mountain. During his distinguished career, he was seriously wounded in the head at Kennesaw Mountain and escaped from capture in Gaylesville, Alabama.

What he saw and experienced in the war had the most profound effect on Bierce. In addition to the harsh realities of war, Bierce's engagement to childhood sweetheart Bernice ("Fatima") Wright was broken off during the war, adding to his disillusionment. All his experiences in the war are seen as the source of his cynical realism.

After his injury made him unfit for military service, he worked in the post-bellum South for the Treasury Department, a laughably corrupt organization at the time that probably did little to dissuade Bierce's cynicism. He undertook a tour of Western forts and then quit the army after he felt slighted by only earning a second lieutenant's commission.

Bierce landed in San Franscisco in 1867, where he got a job working at the mint. It was then he decided on a career in journalism. Self-taught, he got a regular job as the "Town Crier" in the News Letter by the end of the next year. Bierce's acid wit quickly gained him great local fame and a burgeoning national notoriety. In 1871, he courted and wed Mary Ellen ("Mollie") Day, a San Franciscan socialite of one of the best families of the city.

A wedding gift took them to England, where Bierce would spend one of the happiest periods of his life. He earned his way working for Tom Hood's Fun and continuing his "Town Crier" column in Figaro. During his time in England, two of his children, Day (1872) and Leigh (1874), were born, and he wrote his first three books, Nuggets and Dust (1872), The Fiend's Delight (1873), and Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (1874).

In early 1875, Mollie returned to America with their young family. Bierce reluctantly followed later that year, just before the birth of the couple's third child, Helen. In 1877, Bierce became the editor of The Argonaut, gaining notoriety for his "Prattle" column. After a brief period where Bierce pursued a failed venture in the Black Hills Placer Mining Company, Bierce joined the Wasp in 1881, where he picked up his "Prattle" column.

In 1887, Bierce began his famous (and tumultuous) relationship with publishing baron William Randolph Hearst, joining the staff for the San Francisco Examiner. It was at this time that Bierce's personal life would begin being fraught with tragedies. In 1888, he separated from Mollie when he found "improper" letters to her from a European admirer, and in 1889, Bierce's pride and joy, Day, was slain in a sordid duel over a woman.

While continuing his newspaper work, Bierce began producing books in America. Between 1891-3, Bierce wrote and got published The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter (with G.A. Danziger, 1892), Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1892), Black Beetles In Amber (1892), and Can Such Things Be? (1893).

A lifelong opponent of the railroad interests that literally owned the California politics of his day, Bierce was one of the few journalists brave enough to oppose them. In 1896, Bierce won his greatest victory against Collis P. Huntington, one the biggest "railrogues" in the state. Huntington was in the process of quietly slipping through legislation that would effectively excuse him from repaying his debt to the federal government until after his death. With Hearst's backing and space in the Examiner and New York Journal, Bierce single-handedly brought such public opinion and scrutiny against the bill that it was struck down, the first major defeat the railroad interests had ever been dealt. Most people mark this the first crack in the railroad industry's dam of political power which eventually led to its downfall.

At the turn of the century, Bierce's personal life would again fall under bad stars. In 1901, son Leigh died of pneumonia related to alcoholism. In 1904, Mollie finally officially filed for divorce for "abandonment," but would die the next year before the proceedings were finalized.

Bierce continued on through this period, publishing Fantastic Fables in 1899 and Shapes of Clay in 1903. After Mollie's death in 1905, Bierce began working for Hearst's Cosmopolitan, and Bierce's Cynic's Work Book (later the Devil's Dictionary) was published in 1906.

Bierce became less and less involved in the world around him. When he was approached to compile his Collected Works by Walter Neal, Bierce resigned to Hearst for the last time in 1909. That year, he also published The Shadow on the Dial and Write It Right while working on the Collected Works. The last volumes of the twelve-volume Collected Works set appeared in 1912.

The Death of Bierce

"As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination." --The last line of the last letter from Ambrose Bierce, December 26,1913

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Ambrose Bierce's life was its end. After a tour of the Civil War battlefields of his youth, the septuagenaria Bierce crossed the border into revolutionary Mexico and was never heard from again. Although there should technically be a question mark at the end of the title to this section, we can safely assume his death since he would be over 150 years old if he were alive. (Although, as you'll see below, there are some theories that overcome even this.) Ambrose Bierce's date of death is usually placed in 1914.

The facts of the matter are this. The build-up to Bierce's disappearance began in letters that expressed an interest in going into war-torn Mexico to cheat a lingering old age, perhaps even hook up with rebel leader Pancho Villa. Before a long visit to Civil War battlefields, Bierce made a series of arrangements for the control of various interests that can be seen as either preparation for a lengthy trip or someone putting his final affairs in order. After visiting the battlefields, Bierce crossed into Mexico, sent out a final letter, and vanished. Bierce's daughter, alarmed by the disappearance, petitioned the United States government to help find her father. An official inquiry by the government failed to turn up anything.

The mystery sparked a great deal of interest and controversy. Uncountable reports, theories, and conjecture followed the event as to the final fate of Ambrose Bierce. These theories largely fall into two camps. One assumes that he did go to Mexico; the other assumes he did not.

The "traditional," or at the least the most widely believed theory, holds that he did go to Mexico. Although the specific details of the death vary, the most common story is that after crossing into Mexico, Bierce was killed during the fighting of the war. In different tellings, he was executed by rebels, federal troops, or Villa himself or died in a battle before or after joining up with Villa's forces. One story even tells of an old gringo advisor in Villa's camp who constantly mocked the rebel leader. Although various people claimed to see Bierce or his grave after December 26, there is no definitive contact with Bierce after that last letter.

Some of the Mexican scenarios are right out adventure novels. One holds that Bierce was really going to Mexico to spy on suspected Germa and Japanese plots against the Panama Canal. Bierce apparently went with British adventurer and spy, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges. Heading through Guatemala, Bierce and Mitchell-Hedges manage to stop to steal an ancient Maya artifact called the Skull of Doom. Mitchell-Hedges and Bierce then part ways in British Honduras, with Bierce vanishing into history. Another tale told was that a Central American explorer named Johnson ran across an old man with long, white hair matching Bierce's description. Clad in jaguar skins, the old man was being held prisoner by a tribe of natives who believed that he was a god.

Perhaps the most convincing of the Mexico stories is that of soldier-of-fortune Edward "Tex" O'Reilly in his Born To Raise Hell. He claims to have been contacted by but never seen Bierce in El Passo and then in Chihauhua City. O'Reilly says that several months later, he heard that an American had been killed in a nearby mining camp of Sierra Mojada. He investigated, and heard how an old American, speaking broken Spanish, was executed by Federal Troops when they found out he was searching for Villas troops. The locals told how he kept laughing, even after the first volley of his execution.

Although most of theories that posit that Bierce didn't go to Mexico are fairly far-fetched, at least one has some interesting possibilities. This one holds that Bierce's build-up to his Mexican adventure was a total ruse to disguise his true intention: suicide. In this version, Bierce made one last tour of his fields of honor, then diverted to the Grand Canyon, where he shot himself. Although the theory is psychologically consistent with Bierce and would explain why someone as famous as Bierce was never recognized despite the heavy American press presence in Mexico at the time (especially around Villa), it forces us to ignore the final letters from Mexico.

The other theories based on the idea that Bierce didn't go to Mexico skew towards the fantastic. Right after his disappearance, one source went so far as to claim that Ambrose Bierce never existed at all. Another theory stated that Bierce never went to Mexico, but instead checked himself into a hospital for the insane in Nappa, near the home of his faithful secretary, Miss Christiansen. In 1915, there came reports that Bierce was actually in Europe attached to British Lord Kitchener's staff in France during World War I. Perhaps my personal favorite was one put forth by a paranormal investigator, Charles Fort. He claimed that since Ambrose Bierce disappeared at roughly the same time as one Ambrose Small, it provided definitive proof that evil supernatural forces were collecting Ambroses.

The fictionalizations of his death range wildly. The novels Old Gringo and Yellow are variations of "Bierce into Mexico." A supernatural twist on the Mexican myth is found in the movie From Dusk Till Dawn: The Hangman's Daughter. After traveling into Mexico, Bierce ends up at a vampire temple after escaping bandits. The original ending had him falling during the final battle and turing into an undead vampire, certainly one of the most original takes on his disappearance. However, in the final cut, Bierce assists in dispatching the evil, and then disappears into Mexico and history.

Certainly the most fantastic fictionalization comes from the comic series, Lost Planet. Lost Planet defies brief explanation. It details the quest of an American fortune hunter, a wizard, an alien Amazon, and her pet ape against the evil mage king who subjegated a dinosaur-infested planet of super-science after a devestating war. Yet there is more. The evil king's mistress is a drugged and amnesic Amelia Earhart. The wizard is Ambrose Bierce.

After tiring of the Mexican revolution, Bierce travels to Venezula, where he meets up with some colonists from the other planet who were escaping the cataclismic war. He accidentally enters the portal to their world while trying to dispatch a "demon" who was menacing the settlement. Bierce is quickly captured by the mage king, but the evil elixir which gives the king his power is slowly driving him crazy. Bierce is able to pacify the king and impose some authority on him, giving Bierce free reign of the castle. Finding a hidden sanctuary, Bierce is taught the magic arts by the ghosts of the scientists imprisoned and killed by the king, allowing him to escape.

At the end of the series, the group dispatches the king and restores power to the scientists' descendent. Trapped on the other world, Bierce is still alive--and will continue to be so, as the other planet imbues a life span three times that of Earth.

EULOGY n. Praise of a person who either has the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.