An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

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

the gallant army that 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 war time. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was

too humble for him to perform in aid of the South, no adventure too

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 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 tow."

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

fulness--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--saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied

flies, the grey 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