In the Midst of Life
Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians is a collection of twenty-six short stories originally published in 1909 detailing the lives of soldiers and civilians during the American Civil War. Ambrose Bierce’s stories about Civil War soldiers include“A Horseman in the Sky,”“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,”“Chickamauga,”“A Son of the Gods,”“One of the Missing,”“Killed at Resaca,”“The Affair at Coulter’s Notch,”“The Coup de Grâce,”“Parker Adderson, Philosopher,”“An Affair of Outposts,”“The Story of a Conscience,”“One Kind of Officer,”“One Officer, One Man,”“George Thurston,” and“The Mocking-Bird.”Bierce’s stories about the lives of civilians during the Civil War period include“The Man Out of the Nose,”“An Adventure at Brownville,”“The Famous Gilson Bequest,”“The Applicant,”“A Watcher by the Dead,”“The Man and the Snake,”“A Holy Terror,”“The Suitable Surroundings,”“The Boarded Window,”“A Lady from Red Horse,” and“The Eyes of the Panther.”