A Horseman in the Sky

• One Act Play written by Ambrose Bierce, an American writer

• Characters:

• Narrator
• Carter Druse, a young man from Virginia, USA, a Federal Union soldier
• Mr. Druse (Carter’s father), a Confederate soldier
• Mrs. Druse (Carter’s mother)
• Federal Commander
• Federal Officer
• Federal Sergeant
• Three Federal soldiers

• Socio-economic and political situation:

• Civil war (1861-1865) between the Federal Union and eleven southern states (Confederates).
• 18 free states (non-slaveholding northern states) and 15 slave states (slaveholding southern states)

• Time/year of the event in the play: one sunny afternoon in the autumn of 1861

• Color of the different army uniform:

• Federal Union army: blue
• Confederate army: gray

• Plot summary:

Carter Druse, a Virginian youth is against slavery and the division of the Union, so, he joins the army of Federal Union, while his father is fighting for the Confederate as Virginia is among the Confederate states. In the beginning of the play, Carter Druse is posted as a sentinel on top of a cliff overlooking a valley where the five regiments of Federal infantry are hiding in the forest. Their plan is to climb the cliff at nightfall and descending the other slope attack surprisingly a camp of the Confederate army at about midnight. While in his duty in this sunny afternoon, Carter falls asleep. But when he wakes up, he sees a Confederate soldier on a horse on the edge of the cliff looking down upon the valley. The horseman has evidently seen the Federal regiments hiding in the forest, so he must be killed, otherwise, he will go and inform his regiment and come and attack the Federal soldiers instead.  But when the horseman turns, Carter sees his face and recognizes him to be his own father. Caught in the dilemmatic situation of either to kill his father and do his duty to the Union or let his father go away and thus do his duty to his family, he hesitates at first, but soon painfully decides to do his duty as a soldier and shoots the horse, which causes both the horse and the rider fall off the cliff and die. Carter is, then, left in grief and sobbing at the loss of his father.

In this way, this play shows how civil war divided not only the country but the family too making a person enemy of his own father, son, or brother. The play has depicted the tragedy of the civil war.