Ambrose Bierce

[bloodrayne]

So many theories...Nothing proven...What do YOU guys think REALLY happened to him?


Oh...And what was the name of that movie where they speculated what may have happened to him...He was in Mexico looking for some kind of tribe or gang or something...He said he was going to join them...I only watched it once, I don't remember a lot of the details...I OWN this movie, but I'm not sure which one it is :o

[bloodrayne]

OH...I think it was All Souls Day with Jeffrey Combs...We only watched it once, but I really think that was the one...Maybe...

[bloodrayne]

You guys have seriously NEVER thought about this?...NONE of you?...I mean, the guy just disappeared off the face of the earth

I guess I'm the only one who ever wondered...



I bet you thought about what might have happened to Jimmy Hoffa...

[crabapple]

I have wondered about it. By the way, I co-wrote a little movie that should be released some time this year, it was a loose adaptation of a Lovecraft story, and we peppered the script with many references to Lovecraft and his comtemporaries and every "thing from space" movie we could come up with. One character was named Ambrose, and another character was named Wellman after Manly Wade Wellman. And we had another character named after August Derleth too!

[newb]

You talking about THIS Ambrose Bierce?

Bierce was born in rural Meigs County, Ohio, and reared in Kosciusko County, Indiana, attending high school at the county seat, Warsaw.

He was the tenth of thirteen children, whose father, Marcus Aurelius Bierce (1799-1876), eccentrically gave all of them names beginning with the letter "A." In order of birth, the Bierce siblings were Abigail, Amelia, Ann, Addison, Aurelius, Augustus, Almeda, Andrew, Albert, Ambrose, Arthur, Adelia and Aurelia. His mother Laura Sherwood was a descendant of William Bradford.

At the outset of the American Civil War, Bierce enlisted in the Union Army's Ninth Regiment, Indiana Volunteers. In February 1862 he was commissioned first lieutenant, and served on the staff of Gen. William Babcock Hazen as a topographical engineer, making maps of likely battlefields. Bierce fought at the Battle of Shiloh (April 1862), a terrifying experience that became a source for several later short stories and the memoir, "What I Saw of Shiloh."

He continued fighting in the western theater, at one point receiving newspaper attention for his daring rescue, under fire, of a gravely wounded comrade at the Battle of Rich Mountain, West Virginia. In June 1864 he sustained a serious head wound at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, and spent the rest of the summer on furlough, returning to active duty in September. He was discharged from the army in January 1865.

His military career resumed, however, when in the summer of 1866 he rejoined Gen. Hazen as part of the latter's expedition to inspect military outposts across the western plains. The expedition proceeded by horseback and wagon from Omaha, Nebraska, arriving toward year's end in San Francisco, California.

Marriage and children

Bierce married Mary Ellen ("Mollie") Day on Christmas Day, 1871. They had three children, Day (1872-1889), Leigh (1874-1901) and Helen (1875-1940).

Both of Bierce's sons predeceased him: Day was shot in a brawl over a girl, and Leigh died of pneumonia.

Bierce separated from his wife in 1888 after discovering compromising letters to her from an admirer, and the couple divorced in 1904. Mollie died the following year.

Journalism

In San Francisco, Bierce received the rank of brevet Major before resigning from the Army. He remained in San Francisco for many years, eventually becoming famous as a contributor and/or editor for a number of local newspapers and periodicals, including The San Francisco News Letter, The Argonaut, and The Wasp. Bierce lived and wrote in England from 1872 to 1875. Returning to the United States, he again took up residence in San Francisco. In 1879–1880, he went to Rockerville and Deadwood, South Dakota, in the Dakota Territory, to try his hand as local manager for a New York mining company, but when the company failed he returned to San Francisco and resumed his career in journalism. In 1887, he became one of the first regular columnists and editorialists to be employed on William Randolph Hearst's newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, eventually becoming one of the most prominent and influential among the writers and journalists of the West Coast. In December 1899, he moved to Washington, D.C., but continued his association with the Hearst Newspapers until 1906.

McKinley accusation

Because of his penchant for biting social criticism and satire, Bierce's long newspaper career was often steeped in controversy. On several occasions his columns stirred up a storm of hostile reaction which created difficulties for Hearst. One of the most notable of these incidents occurred following the assassination of President William McKinley when Hearst's opponents turned a poem Bierce had written about the assassination of Governor Goebel in 1900 into a cause célèbre. Bierce meant his poem, written on the occasion of the assassination of Governor William Goebel of Kentucky, to express a national mood of dismay and fear, but after McKinley was shot in 1901 it seemed to foreshadow the crime:

"The bullet that pierced Goebel's breast
Can not be found in all the West;
Good reason, it is speeding here
To stretch McKinley on his bier."

Hearst was thereby accused by rival newspapers — and by then Secretary of State Elihu Root — of having called for McKinley's assassination. Despite a national uproar that ended his ambitions for the presidency (and even his membership in the Bohemian Club), Hearst neither revealed Bierce as the author of the poem, nor fired him.

Literary works

His short stories are considered among the best of the 19th century, providing a popular following based on his roots. He wrote realistically of the terrible things he had seen in the war in such stories as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", "Killed at Resaca", and "Chickamauga".

Bierce was reckoned a master of "pure" English by his contemporaries, and virtually everything that came from his pen was notable for its judicious wording and economy of style. He wrote skillfully in a variety of literary genres, and in addition to his celebrated ghost and war stories he published several volumes of poetry and verse. His Fantastic Fables anticipated the ironic style of grotesquerie that turned into a genre in the 20th century.

One of Bierce's most famous works is his much-quoted book, The Devil's Dictionary, originally an occasional newspaper item which was first published in book form in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book. It offers an interesting reinterpretation of the English language in which cant and political double-talk are neatly lampooned.

Bierce's twelve-volume Collected Works were published in 1909, the seventh volume of which consists solely of The Devil's Dictionary, the title Bierce himself preferred to The Cynic's Word Book.

Disappearance

In October 1913 the septuagenarian Bierce departed Washington, D.C., for a tour of his old Civil War battlefields. By December he had proceeded on through Louisiana and Texas, crossing by way of El Paso into Mexico, which was in the throes of revolution. In Ciudad Juárez he joined Pancho Villa's army as an observer, and in that role participated in the battle of Tierra Blanca.

Bierce is known to have accompanied Villa's army as far as Chihuahua, Chihuahua. After a last letter to a close friend, sent from there December 26, 1913, he vanished without a trace, becoming one of the most famous disappearances in American literary history. Investigations into his fate proved fruitless, and despite an abundance of theories his end remains shrouded in mystery. The date of his death is generally cited as "1914?".

In one of his last letters, Bierce wrote:

"Good-bye — if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico — ah, that is euthanasia."

[crabapple]

No, no, she meant...she meant the other one.

[bloodrayne]

Originally Posted by newb

You talking about THIS Ambrose Bierce?

Yes...That one :)


So...No theories?

You think he just got killed with Villa's bunch?...Wouldn't someone have known FOR SURE if that had happened?...He wasn't exactly unknown...and neither was Villa

What if that note was just a ruse to throw people off so he could disappear, live a normal life, and not be bothered?...He WAS a writer, he DID have quite a creative imagination...

Think about 'Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge'...That was about a guy who envisioned escape, freedom, the whole thing was so vivid and well-thought out, the guy didn't even realize he was dying or had already died...

My brain put that together in some kinda way that made sense, and connected the story in a similar way to Bierce's disappearance, but I'm not really sure how to explain it correctly...



Or look at the note...He brings up dying in boring ways as a common old man....Disease?...Maybe he WAS dying, he knew it, and he didn't want to be remembered as going out that way...Maybe he wanted a more dynamic finish...Such as the image of a firing squad...

Owl Creek was about execution, too

[newb]

Shit Happens

The following is a compilation of people who have mysteriously disappeared, whose death is not substantiated, whose remains have not been recovered, whose current whereabouts are unknown, and (except for the most recent cases) people who may be presumed deceased.


1499

* John Cabot - Italian explorer. Disappeared, along with four other ships, during a voyage to find a western route from Europe to Asia.

1501

* Gaspar Corte-Real - Portuguese explorer - Disappeared on an expedition to discover the Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia.

1502

* Miguel Corte-Real - Portuguese explorer. Disappeared while searching for his brother Gaspar.

1611

* Henry Hudson - English explorer. Disappeared after a mutiny by his crew while exploring the Hudson Bay region.

1694

* Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, Swedish count, lover of Sophia, Princess of Zelle (who was the wife of His Majesty King George I of Great Britain).

1788

* La Pérouse and his scientific expedition (two ships, La Boussole and l'Astrolabe, 220 crew members including 40 scientists) vanished near the island of Vanikoro in the Pacific Ocean.

1809

* Benjamin Bathurst a British diplomat vanished mysteriously at an inn in Perleberg [1]

1826

* William Morgan of rural New York disappeared around the time his book critical of Freemasonry was published.



1894

* Boston Corbett- Army sergeant who fatally shot the escaping John Wilkes Booth. Believed to have perished in a forest fire, although his remains were never found.

1896

* Albert Jennings Fountain - and his eight-year-old son Henry disappeared near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

1900

* In December, three lighthouse keepers working on the Flannan Isles (off the northwestern coast of Scotland) disappeared without any explanation.

1909

* Etta Place - associate of Butch Cassidy and the girlfriend to the Sundance Kid.

1910

* Dorothy Arnold - Manhattan socialite and perfume heiress, last seen in New York City on December 12, 1910.

1913

* Ambrose Bierce - American author and journalist, disappeared without a trace during travels in Mexico. Last confirmed alive December 26, 1913 in Chihuahua.

1914

* F. Lewis Clark Idaho businessman.

1917

* Georges Guynemer - French combat aviator.

1918

* Crew of USS Cyclops.
* Jüri Vilms, Estonian statesman.
* Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia and her family. Her identity was claimed by Anna Anderson.

1924

* George Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared during a two-man climb toward the summit of Mount Everest. After missing for 75 years, Mallory's body was later found in 1999.

1925

* Percy Fawcett - British archaeologist and explorer. Disappeared with his son Jack while searching for a lost city believed to exist in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil

1927

* Charles Nungesser - French aviator who disappeared on May 8,1927 while attempting an east-to-west flight to North America, only two weeks before Lindbergh's successful flight from New York to Paris

1928

* Roald Amundsen - Norwegian explorer - In 1928, his plane crashed in the Arctic Ocean and his body was never found.
* Glen and Bessie Hyde - Grand Canyon rafters.

1930

* Joseph F. Crater - Associate Justice of the New York Supreme Court, last seen August 6, 1930, entering a New York City taxi cab. His disappearance became the subject of widespread media attention and a grand jury investigation.

1934

* Wallace D. Fard, founder of the Nation of Islam. In 1934, after conferring leadership of the Nation of Islam to his protegé Elijah Muhammad, he left Detroit, where he had been living, and disappeared without a trace while in the custody of the Chicago police department. The Nation of Islam maintained that he had returned to Mecca, but rumors persisted that he had been murdered by the Chicago police or by Elijah Muhammad.

1936

* Joseph Rodriguez - 4-year-old child and resident of Spanish Harlem, New York City who disappeared in 1936 while playing with friends. Although Rodriguez' aunt received a telegram informing her that her nephew had been injured and would return home shortly, Joseph never appeared. There was never any further communication from the writer and to this day there was no trace of him nor his body.

1937

* Amelia Earhart - Famous American aviator; disappeared in the South Pacific (along with her navigator) while attempting to circumnavigate the globe. The theories, rumors, and legends regarding her disappearance are voluminous (to say the least).

1938

* Ettore Majorana, Italian physicist. Disappeared during a boat trip from Naples to Palermo.
* Andrew Carnegie Whitfield - nephew of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, disappeared while piloting a small airplane over Long Island, New York.

1939

* Richard Halliburton, author and adventurer. On March 3, 1939, Halliburton set off from Hong Kong aboard a custom-built Chinese junk, intending to sail to San Francisco in time for the World's Fair. On March 24, a typhoon overtook the ship, and neither the ship nor Halliburton were ever recovered.

1944

* Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French author and aviator. Apparently died when his Lockheed P-38 Lightning crashed off the coast of Marseille. Though the aircraft was recovered in 2003, his body was never found.
* Glenn Miller - popular American jazz musician and bandleader. Disappeared on December 15, 1944, en route from England to Paris to play for troops in the recently liberated city. Neither his remains nor the aircraft in which he was riding were ever recovered.

1945

* Charles Carroll Taylor - leader of Flight 19.
* Raoul Wallenberg - Anti-Nazi activist.
* Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose - one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian Independence Movement.

1948

The 29 passengers and three crew of the Airborne Transport DC-3 airliner, known as NC16002, which vanished on December 28, 1948 near the end of a scheduled flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami, Florida.

1950

* Richard Colvin Cox - United States Military Academy, West Point cadet.

1953

* Felix Moncla disappeared while hunting an unidentified flying object

1955

* Curtis Chillingworth was a Florida state judge who (together with his wife, Marjorie Chillingworth) disappeared from his Manapalan, Florida home in June 1955. Later it came to be believed that they were the victims of a Murder-for-hire plot.

* The crew and passengers of the MV Joyita, which disappeared in the South Pacific ocean, but then re-appeared five weeks later with no one on board.

1956

* Lionel "Buster" Crabb - British frogman who disappeared during an MI6 mission investigating the Soviet cruiser Orkhonikidze in Portsmouth Harbour.
* Jesús María de Galíndez - Colombian scholar and activist, taught at Columbia University.

1959

* Camilo Cienfuegos was a Cuban revolutionary born in Calabazar de Sagua, Las Villas Cuba. He disappeared and presumably died on October 28, 1959, in a Cessna accident due to bad weather while flying over the sea. However, neither his plane nor his body were ever recovered despite the Cuban government efforts.

1960s

* Emile Desportes - composer, inventor, painter and explorer - 1960s?

1961

* Michael Rockefeller - son of Nelson Rockefeller.

1966

* The Beaumont children - Jane (9), Arnna (7) and Grant (4), all disappeared from an Adelaide beach

1967

* Harold Holt - Australian Prime Minister - 1967
* Jim Thompson - designer famous for Thai silks.

1970

* William "Billy Batts" Devino - An American mafia member

1971

* D. B. Cooper - skyjacker, true identity unknown - Jumped from a hijacked Boeing 727 over the Pacific Northwest on November 21, 1971.

1972

* Nicholas Begich - American Congressman who disappeared October 16, 1972 when the Cessna 310 he was riding in went missing en route to Juneau, Alaska from Anchorage. Hale Boggs also disappeared in the incident.
* Hale Boggs - American Congressman who disappeared October 16, 1972 when the Cessna 310 he was riding in went missing en route to Juneau, Alaska from Anchorage. Nick Begich also disappeared in the incident.
* Roberto Clemente - Puerto Rican baseball player who died in a plane crash off the coast of Puerto Rico. Body was never found.

1974

* Oscar Zeta Acosta - American attorney and Chicano activist - 1974. Most famous for portrayal as "Dr. Gonzo" in Hunter S. Thompson's book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
* Lord Lucan (Richard John Bingham) - British high-society figure and murder suspect.

[newb]

more shit happens

1975

* Jimmy Hoffa - Union leader.

1976

* Bradford Bishop - bludgeoned his spouse, three children and mother to death in 1976. He was indicted for the murders and is still at large.

1978

* John Brisker - former ABA and NBA player, disappeared after flying to Uganda.
* Mel Lyman - cult leader - 1978. Claimed to have died 1978 by cult members, but no body, death certificate, or other proof ever produced, date of death and burial place unknown ouside the "Lyman Family".
* Frederick Valentich disappeared after a mutual UFO-encounter

1979

* Etan Patz - schoolboy, disappeared while walking to New York City bus stop.
* Tommy Anthony DeSimone- A New York mobster
* Louis Cafora- An armed robber from New York
* Joanna Cafora- The wife of armed robber Louis Cafora

1980

* Rosemary Tonks - poet, about 1980.

1982

* Paul America - actor. After a failed attempt to reach Andy Warhol by telephone, he disappeared without a trace.

1983

* Emanuela Orlandi - a citizen of Vatican City.

1985

* Andrew Fluegelman - programmer, considered the father of shareware business.

1987

* Licorice McKechnie, a.k.a. 'Likky Lambert', singer-songwriter from the Incredible String Band, disappeared from L.A..

1989

* Jacob Wetterling, kidnapped on October 22 in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Was never found.

1991

* Sarah MacDiarmid - young female, disappeared from Kananook station in Melbourne, Australia.

1993

* George Berdynski (Burdynski?) - disappeared while walking through his neighborhood of Brentwood, Maryland.

1994

* Michael Anthony Hughes has been missing since his abduction from Indian Meridian Elementary School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by Franklin Delano Floyd (who claimed to be his father) on September 12th of that year. Floyd has claimed that Hughes is still alive somewhere in the U.S., but has not disclosed his location.

1995

* Whitey Bulger - leader of the Winter Hill Gang organised crime group. Fled FBI prosecution in 1995, included in the Ten Most Wanted list.
* Richey James Edwards - member of Welsh rock band the Manic Street Preachers.

1998

* Mikelle Biggs - child from Mesa, Arizona.
* Arlene Fraser - Scottish woman whose body was never found but is suspected to have been murdered by her husband Nat Fraser. The story has been covered extensively in the Scottish press since her disappearance.

1999

* Elisabeth (Elizabeth?) Chou - student in Ealing, west London.

2000

* Trevor Deely - bank official who disappeared in Dublin, Ireland. After his disappearance he became a household name following a blanket poster campaign.

2001

* Peter Falconio.
* Persons missing after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
* Niqui McCown disappeared after telling her mother she was going to do her laundry on July 22.

2002

* Bison Dele - former NBA player, thought to have been murdered in the Pacific Ocean by his brother, body never found.

2004

* Tooker Gomberg - Canadian politician and activist.

2005

* Natalee Holloway - U.S. teenager, disappeared in Aruba.
* Ray Gricar - District Attorney in Bellefonte, PA
* Charles Rutherford Jr. - Attorney who disappeared with his girlfriend in Lake Huron, her body was later found.

[bloodrayne]

I could have SWORN that I heard Amelia Earhart's body was found a while back...Not too far from plane wreckage...On an island...