Shattering short story..."An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

Text followed by literary commentary.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

by

Ambrose Bierce

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners—two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as "support," that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest—a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.

Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground—a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators—a single company of infantry in line, at "parade rest," the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.

The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good—a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He wore a moustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.

The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgement as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!

He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift—all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by— it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each new stroke with impatience and—he knew not why—apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the trust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.

He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. "If I could free my hands," he thought, "I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader's farthest advance."

As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.

II

Peyton Farquhar was a well to do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in wartime. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South, no adventure to perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.

One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.

"The Yanks are repairing the railroads," said the man, "and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order."

"How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?" Farquhar asked.

"About thirty miles."

"Is there no force on this side of the creek?"

"Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge."

"Suppose a man—a civilian and student of hanging—should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel," said Farquhar, smiling, "what could he accomplish?"

The soldier reflected. "I was there a month ago," he replied. "I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder."

The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.

III

As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened—ages later, it seemed to him—by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness—of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river!—the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface—knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. "To be hanged and drowned," he thought, "that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair."

He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!—what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire, his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!

He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf—he saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies' wings, the strokes of the water spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat—all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.

He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.

Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.

A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldly and pitilessly—with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquility in the men—with what accurately measured interval fell those cruel words:

"Company!… Attention!… Shoulder arms!… Ready!… Aim!… Fire!"

Farquhar dived—dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.

As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream—nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.

The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning:

"The officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!"

An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.

"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me—the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun."

Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round—spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men, all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color—that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream—the southern bank—and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of AEolian harps. He had not wish to perfect his escape—he was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.

A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.

All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.

By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famished. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which—once, twice, and again—he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.

His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue—he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!

Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!

Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.

"Literatary analysis: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce"

by

Steve Gregory

February 17th, 2010

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Ambrose Bierce was an American writer (journalist, satirist, short story writer) who lived from 1842-1914 (or thereabouts, since he disappeared in Mexico somewhere around 1914). His two best known works are "The Devil's Dictionary" (a dictionary of epic, satirical proportions) and the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." However, his works (available at Project Gutenberg) encompass many genres and themes and are entirely worth reading for analysis and pleasure. In many ways, Ambrose Bierce is what you would get if you crossed Stephen King with Mark Twain. There is humorous and sometimes biting satire, as well as the sort of terror that makes a story memorable for years and years. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is of the latter variety.

The story takes place during the Civil War in the United States. (The reader should note that Bierce, like Hemingway, was not just a keen observer of war, but also a participant. Bierce fought for the Union army during the war.) Peyton Farquhar, a Southern gentleman who was not a rebel soldier but nonetheless a slave owner and rebel sympathizer, is standing on Owl Creek Bridge, about to be hanged. A brief flashback enlightens the reader as to why. Farquhar, having been visited by a Union soldier in disguise, was lured into trying to sabotage the bridge. After the flashback, the hanging commences. As Farquhar begins to fall, the sensation of his death is described. Then the rope breaks and Farquhar is freed. He manages to free his hands, remove the noose from his neck, and swim for freedom. The Union soldiers on the bridge fire at him, but he escapes. He then wanders through the forest, eventually ending back at his home. But just as he is about to embrace his wife who has come out to joyfully greet him, Farquhar is snapped back to reality. He dangles from the bridge in his noose, dead.

There are a multitude of elements to this short story (about 6 pages in length) that make it stand out so much as Bierce's most exemplary piece of serious fiction. First, and foremost, is the human element. In this story, Bierce makes Farquhar human and sympathetic to the reader. He is not described in any terms that make his death seem justified or fair. He is only 35, good looking, has a "kindly expression," and is married with children. For whatever reason, Farquhar could not be a soldier, but his convictions are such that he stands behind them and helps in whatever way he can. In short, Peyton Farquhar is a principled, decent man (even if his principles are wrong).

Peyton's humanity is in direct contrast to the lack of humanity of those about to hang in. All the Union (referred to as "Federal" in the story) soldiers around him are without character or personality. They fill the role of shadowy executioners, without conscience or compassion. They do their duty silently, efficiently. Bierce even describes two of them as so still and expressionless that they "might have been statues." Not only is there nothing human about these men, there seems to be nothing human about what they are doing.

This leads to the second element that makes the story striking, which is the duality of emotion. The reader understands that the Union army is "in the right" as they fight the Civil War, yet Bierce asks the reader to examine how far "right" can go before it becomes "wrong." The reader wants to sympathize with Farquhar not because Farquhar did anything right or noble, but because Farquhar is the only "human" in the story. The reader "knows" Farquhar. The reader feels pity and sympathy for Farquhar. The reader feels pity and sympathy for Farquhar's wife who will never see her husband again, and his children who will never have their father. Yet the reader knows that the "statues" are the ones in the right. Farquhar is a slave owner. He has tried to sabotage the bridge and prevent the Union army from victory and freeing the slaves. He is wrong. But when the reader looks through Farquhar's eyes, is put in touch with Farquhar's emotions, the heartstrings are tugged. Maybe, just this once, the bad guy can escape, the reader thinks. Maybe the bad guy isn't quite so bad.

And then the unimaginable happens. Through some sort of benevolent twist of fate, Farquhar is given the chance to escape. The reader sees everything with him, feels everything with him. The bullets that narrowly miss him. The cannon that misses him. The sense of desperate struggle as Farquhar pulls himself from the river and begins the voyage home. This slave owner and rebel abettor has captured the reader's sentiments. The sympathy that Bierce built up for Farquhar in describing his humanity has spilled over and the reader is taken along for the ride.

And then, just at the moment of triumphant joy, the reader and Farquhar are snapped back to cruel reality. There will be no miraculous escape. There is no second chance for evildoers. And it is this element of, for lack of a better word, horror that makes the story so captivating. Bierce has captured the reader through humanity, and now forces the reader to see that humanity in its most horrific form. Horrific not just because of the cruelty and callousness of death, but horrific because of the glimpse of self this humanity has given the reader. While the reader sympathizes with Farquhar, the reader feels he or she is on the side of the Union army. If so, does that then make the reader part of the executioner's party? Does the reader become one of the statues on the bridge, a mute observer to this ceremony of death? Does the reader cross the boundary from "right" to "wrong"? Just like his satirical works, Bierce forces the reader to look just below the surface and question exactly what thoughts and feelings are present and why. If the reader feels bad, why? What moral reason is there for that? But if the reader feels good, why is that? What moral reason exists for that as well?

If a person easily feels uncomfortable confronting human elements turned against him or herself, Bierce is definitely a writer to avoid. In very much the same way that Stephen King's early works twisted reality just enough to make the terrifying plausible, so do many of the works of Ambrose Bierce. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is just such a story. Are right and wrong variables or absolutes? Can humans be both right and wrong? What makes "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" so chilling is that when the reader is done with it, "Yes" is the only possible answer to both questions.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge: A Literary Analysis"

by

Bryan R Price

As a personal fan of short stories, I started reading "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce with a positive attitude. What kept me captivated was Bierce's writing style. Throughout the entire story, I couldn't help but notice the short story is great enough with the plot, but worth reading alone to experience the Bierce style of writing. The sense of time, descriptive writing, and plot make this short story, I feel, very worthy of a literary analysis.

At the beginning, there is a gloomy outlook. The main character, Peyton Farquhar, is being hanged. The events leading up to his hanging accurately give the reader a case of anxiety, and finally, the reader assumes the death of Peyton as he undoubtedly meets his end. Immediately following, there is a very smooth transition into a flashback. The flashback is very valuable, and very well placed. It tells of Peyton's background, and how he most likely came to be in his position at Owl Creek Bridge. This greatly placed flashback makes the reader forget about the present timing of events, which is very vital in making the illusion of Peyton's daydream a reality. As quickly as this flashback comes into being, it ends.

The character slips into a very deadly daydream, and so begins the illusion. Through Peyton's imaginary endeavors, the beauty of nature is bestowed upon the reader in a sense of time that would in most cases no be applicable. Time comes to a near halt as Peyton, in his daydream, has managed to fall into the stream of which he was being hanged over, and tries to make his escape. During the intense situation of dodging re-capture or death, everything taken for granted in normal day life has exploded into detail through Bierce's descriptive writing. As Peyton makes his way across the stream, dragonflies buzz around the sluggish stream. Insects on leaves, spiders spinning intricate webs, millions of blades of grass, and dancing gnats fill Peyton's vivid daydream. Through the entire scene, time becomes to a very believable standstill. Instead of the usual action escape scene, Bierce creatively makes the reader acknowledge the finer points of a near death experience- a very unselfish focus on what the reader would most likely miss on this world, instead of focusing on bettering the unfortunate situation.
As time reaches its slowest, most dull, point; it catalyzes into reality as Peyton fights to save his life. The sense of time is again reversed as Peyton dodges ammunition fire. Bierce increases the heart rate of the reader as the main character relies on pure luck to get away from the firing squad. Finally, Peyton escapes onto land. And again, as soon as time permits, he is taking into full effect of his surroundings. Bierce compares sand to gems, and encapsulates the reader's sense of smell with the lush wildlife of the forest. His descriptive scenes again force the reader to slow the sense of time and take in the environment to its fullest effect.

Bierce makes the pathway home much briefer, although the main character Peyton actually spends a full night traveling home. This is essential for keeping the reader captivated, and keeping attention span of the reader so that the ending can appear out of nowhere and have its full effect of surprise. For the last time, Peyton's daydream slows down. His sole wish to be in his wife's arm, his foremost motive to escape, is at long last seconds away from occurring. The familiar descriptive writing style of Bierce accurately provides a sense of relief, and a happy ending. Without warning, Peyton's senses do something very peculiar for the current scene. Although it would seem as Bierce is describing Peyton as blacking out, the anxious reader finds out in the next sentence that he is put to death from being hanged underneath Owl Creek Bridge. Even during such an incredibly shocking event, Bierce describes the body of Peyton as swaying gently side to side. Confusion is replaced by awe, as the reader pieces together the real events of the story.

And with the end the story, you have to take some time to rethink what you read. Stories that induce such thought after reading it are the best, I feel. Bierce's writing style is perfect for a short story. He very proficiently goes from scene to scene, smoothly slows down or speeds time, and sets the entire story up for a shocking ending. For the time of being written, this story is, I feel, one of the best short stories of its time. Ambrose Bierce truly is an innovative writer, with a much respectable style of writing.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge [Wikipedia]