A Horseman in the Sky

“A Horseman in the Sky” is a widely anthologized short story by Ambrose Bierce (1842-c. 1914) set during the Civil War. It concerns a Union soldier who must choose between shooting his father, a Confederate scout, and endangering thousands of his comrades. It was first published on April 14, 1889, in William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner, where Bierce was a staff writer, and later collected in Bierce’s book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians in 1891. This guide refers to the version of “A Horseman in the Sky” presented in the Library of America’s Ambrose Bierce: The Devil’s Dictionary, Tales, & Memoirs, edited by S. T. Joshi (2011).

The story is divided into four parts. In the first, a Union soldier is asleep on the side of a road in Virginia in 1861. The soldier is neglecting his watch—a crime the narrator indicates would be punishable by death if discovered. The soldier is positioned above a deep valley that appears, the narrator says, “entirely shut in” by cliffs (4). He can also see a large flat rock further along the ridge where he lies. The section ends with the revelation that five regiments of Union infantry are hidden at the bottom of the valley, having “marched all the previous day and night” (4). They plan to march over a ridge and surprise a Confederate camp during the night. In the meantime, because they could be so easily trapped in the valley, they must remain undetected or, the narrator says, “their position would be perilous in the extreme” (4).

The second section identifies the sleeping soldier and provides his backstory. He is Carter Druse, a wealthy Virginian, whose home is only a few miles away. In a flashback, Druse announces to his father he is joining a Union regiment. His father replies that the son should “do what [he] conceive[s] to be [his] duty” (4), but that to Virginia he is now a traitor. The father also urges Druse not to tell his mother as she is gravely ill. The narrator then describes Druse’s subsequent success in the military, where “[b]y conscience and courage, by deeds and daring, he soon commended himself to his fellows and officers” (5). He is asleep on duty now only, the narrator says, because “fatigue had been stronger than resolution” (5).

Eventually, he awakes, the narrator says, to “some invisible messenger of fate” (5). Upon opening his eyes, Druse sees “an equestrian statue of impressive dignity” standing upon a “colossal pedestal” (5). The figure is described in detail as a statue until Druse detects slight movement in the horse. It is, of course, not a statue but a real horse and rider, the latter of whom is dressed in Confederate gray, standing on the large flat rock at the top of the cliff.

Druse is hiding in a clump of laurel bushes. He aims at the rider but hesitates to fire when the rider looks in his direction. He nearly faints from the “intensity of emotion” when he sees that the soldier is his father (6). He recollects himself and considers his duty: Druse cannot let the man go to report his comrades’ position and there is no way to capture him. He entertains the possibility that the rider is simply “admiring the sublimity of the landscape” (6), but then realizes the presence of the troops below is unmistakable. He remembers his father’s words concerning duty, but instead of shooting the man, he aims at the horse and fires.

The third section shifts to a new character, a Union officer exploring the valley below, who is astonished to see a horseman flying through the air from the cliffs above. The vision appears supernatural to him. The officer searches the valley floor to find where the horseman landed but to no avail. He is so convinced that the figure was flying that he does not search directly beneath the cliff where the horseman would have landed. The officer says nothing of what he saw to his fellow soldiers. When he returns to camp, his commander questions him as to what he learned. The officer lies, saying he learned there is no road leading into the valley from the south. The narrator says that the commander “knowing better, smiled” (8).

Section 4 returns to Druse, who is approached by a sergeant who questions him about the gunfire the sergeant heard. Druse is pale and reticent but eventually admits to shooting a horse. Upon further pressing he reveals the identity of the rider. The sergeant walks off exclaiming “Good God!” (9).