Chickamauga

“Chickamauga” is a short story by Ambrose Bierce, first published in a collection of his stories in 1887. The name refers to a Civil War battlefield in Georgia.

The story is set in the South during the Civil War. The story’s unnamed protagonist is a young boy, referred to throughout as “the child.” We are told that while the boy comes from a humble farming family, he is descended from victors and conquerors and has an avidity for battle in his blood. His father was himself once a soldier, who “fought against naked savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of a civilized race to the far South” (Paragraph 2). Although he is now only a “poor planter,” (Paragraph 2), he remains obsessed with his martial past and has schooled his son in wartime stories and strategies.

The story opens with the young boy going out to play in the fields around his house, armed with a home-made wooden sword. He chases imaginary enemies down to a brook, pursues them across the water, and is suddenly terrified by the sight of a rabbit. The rabbit causes the boy to retreat into the nearby woods, where he becomes lost.