English for the New Millennium

1. Plot summary
A soldier lies on the ground on the lookout for the terrain
and any potential enemy soldiers that might arrive. He
falls asleep but luckily is not discovered by his sergeant as
it would mean his death. When he awakes, he sees a man
standing on a ledge on a horse who is of the Confederacy.
He contemplates to shoot the man but finds himself
morally challenged. In the end, he shoots the horse. Both
the man and his horse leap off the ledge.
An officer who happens to be in the forest under the ledge
looks up and sees a man on a horse, seemingly running
through the sky. It shocks him and he all but passes out.
When he recovers he goes searching for the man but does
not find man or horse. When he returns to camp, he says
nothing. Meanwhile, a superior comes up to the soldier to
ask what he's seen and the soldier tells him that he shot at
a horse in order to kill the man. When asked to identify
the man, he explains the man was his father and a
Confederatesoldier.
Analysis
"A Horseman in the Sky" highlights the destructive
impact of the war on a single family.[2]
The central
character is a young Virginian, named Carter Druse, who
decides to fight for the Union, betraying his state. He
finds himself unavoidably having to kill a Confederate
horseman spy, who is his father. The story cycles around

2. the considerations and feelings of this young man. In the
first version of the story, Druse, presented with an
impossible choice between patriotic duty and filial
obedience, loses his mind.[2]
The setting with a cliff is essential for the story to work.
Having been a topographical officer in the Civil War,
Bierce describes the setting in much detail, showing his
talent for topographical rendering.[3]
The image of a
falling Confederate officer is supposed to present (for
Federals a thousand feet below) "a grandly grotesque
image that seems to herald the Apocalypse".[4]
Bierce apparently considered "A Horseman in the Sky"
one of his strongest stories, because he chose to begin
his Tales of Soldiers and Civilians with this story.[2]
From
a Freudian perspective, "A Horseman in the Sky"
exemplifies "Bierce's compulsive acts
of patricide".[5]
Bierce's biographers admit that he "wrote
too many stories about sons killing fathers", as evidenced
by stories in his so-called "Patricide Club".[3]
Synopsis of A Horsemanin The Sky
In the year 1861, a Union sentry sleeps at his post near
a road on a high mountain cliff. Below him lies a
narrow valley through which his military unit must
pass in order to attack an unsuspecting Confederate
army on the other side of the mountain. Suddenly, he
awakens and sees an enemy soldier on horseback at

3. the edge of the cliff observing the troop movement
below. The sentry is struck by the beauty of the
motionless figures silhouetted against the sky and is
momentarily torn between his desire to preserve that
beauty and to carry out his sworn duty to kill the
enemy. He remembers the last words of his father, a
wealthy Southern gentleman who, saddened by his
son's decision to join the Union army, nonetheless
admonishes him to "do his duty." The sentry lifts his
rifle and fires, causing the horse and rider to plunge
from the top of the cliff. Moments later, when the
sentry is questioned by his sergeant, it is discovered
that the Confederate soldier whom the sentry killed is
none other than the sentry's own father.