United States, Classics, War, Single Author 

On the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, we proudly present a selection of Ambrose Bierce's Civil War Stories, widely considered to be the finest fiction to come out of that war. Bierce's stories pull no punches. Their objective realism is so effective that some commentators have described these tales as antiwar stories. In addition to a selection of Bierce's fiction, we have included the author's nonfiction masterpiece, "What I Saw at Shiloh." Ambrose Bierce enlisted for a three-month stint with the Union Army 150 years ago, only days after President Lincoln called for recruits. Bierce had just turned 19. He served nobly through the entire war, seeing action in many of its most brutal battles as a foot soldier and mapmaker. Sonoma realist master Chester Arnold contributes a rich gallery of paintings to this collection. Although Arnold's paintings bear no direct reference to the Civil War and were painted nearly a century and a half later, they share with Bierce a profound sense of the hollow devastation that human violence and desecration leave behind. - from Amzon