A Horseman in the Sky

“A Horseman in the Sky” questions Romanticized representations of war in light of its human costs, which were particularly high in a conflict that made enemies of kin and countrymen. The view of human nature that emerges is driven as much by chance, fate, and error as by virtue, choice, and reason. The story suggests that the trauma of war defeats representation, memory, and reason. Reality is not accessible to human consciousness as it must first pass through the filters of the human senses and emotions.

The story begins in a real time and place—a sunny fall afternoon in 1861 in “western Virginia” (3)—with a soldier asleep on the side of a road. Such clues immediately indicate the Civil War. The narrator provides a detailed description of the landscape—a valley walled in by cliffs—as viewed from the position of the soldier above. The valley of full of optical illusions. The narrator says that one open area of the valley “looked hardly larger than an ordinary dooryard, but was really several acres in extent” (3). Such misjudgments of distance figure later in the story when the officer overestimates the trajectory of the horseman in the sky. A road and stream cross the valley, but where they enter and exit among the high cliffs is difficult to determine.

As accurate and thorough as the view is for the narrator (perhaps reflecting Ambrose Bierce’s work as a land surveyor and map-maker in the military), the soldier sees none of it. He is asleep, creating a stark contrast between the awareness of the narrator and the obliviousness of the soldier. The narrative will describe the soldier’s increasing—and increasingly tragic—awareness of not only the physical world around him but of the nature of war. In this way, “A Horseman in the Sky” operates as a compressed coming-of-age story in which the protagonist loses his innocence in learning the harsh realities of war.

Bierce does not concern himself with the external action that might be expected in a war story. Instead, he spends time exploring the internal experience of the protagonist Druse, focusing more on how he sees than what he sees. Carter awakes for unknown reasons. His awakening appears a matter of fate but also an example of an everyday phenomenon that remains stubbornly beyond human control.

His first sight is of what appears to be an equestrian statue standing on a pedestal, a vision so affecting it inspires in him “a keen feeling of artistic delight” (5). An elaborate description of the statue follows couched in terms from the visual arts: “Grecian god carved in [...] marble,” “harmonized with the [...] background,” “foreshortened,” “silhouette,” “cut with the sharpness of a cameo” (5). The stillness of the rider and Carter’s recent sleep create an illusion that is only dispelled when the horse makes a slight movement.

Not only does this illusion speak to the soldier’s faulty powers of perception, but it also alludes to humanity’s collective tendency to misperceive—and consequently misrepresent—war. On seeing the “statue,” Druse believes himself to have awoken after the war’s end to find himself looking at a “noble work of art reared [...] to commemorate the deeds of an heroic past” (6). Just as he, still bleary with sleep, mistakes a living soldier for a lifeless statue, so does society, with the distortion of time, freeze the experience of war into static works of public art that evoke glory and heroism. Bierce’s story offers a counternarrative by focusing on a horrific act of patricide.

After Druse recognizes the living horseman for what he is, a Confederate scout, he hesitates when the horseman turns and faces him and seems to look directly into his “compassionate heart” (6). He finds himself now “near swooning from intensity of emotion” (6). Eventually, he composes himself, his “mind, heart and eyes” becoming “clear” (6). He knows he must protect his fellow soldiers by preventing the scout from returning to his camp, but instead of firing at the horseman, he aims for the horse. Focusing on duty has calmed the roil of emotions and clarified his vision. It is as if, according to the narrator, “the spirit had said to the body: ‘Peace, be still’” (7).

The story does not describe the immediate result of Druse’s shot or Druse’s immediate reactions. It abruptly shifts to the point of view of an officer exploring the valley, who sees a horseman flying through the sky from the cliffs above. The narrator says that he “half-believes” himself witness to “some new Apocalypse” (8), as the airborne rider recalls to him, presumably, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation. “Apocalypse” refers to the destruction of the world during the end of days and to destruction on a catastrophic scale more generally. In the context of this short story, it alludes to the mass destruction of the Civil War and the individual destruction of the Druse family. But “apocalypse” has a lesser-known definition of relevance here as well: that of revelation. The story develops as a succession of revelations for reader and protagonist alike, leading to its ultimate apocalypse, the revelation—and one deeply destructive to Druse personally—that the scout he felt compelled to kill in the name of duty was his father. Lastly, the notion of revelation is also ironic: the horseman of the apocalypse in 1861 Virginia is an illusion. It is ultimately but a trick of perspective.

In the final scene, the narrator returns to Druse, whose “face was white, but […] showed no other sign of emotion” (9). He ignores the sergeant who approaches to investigate the gunshot, laying “without motion or sign of recognition” (9). Druse acted according to a firm but demanding ideal of duty and has been rendered as immobile as the statue he earlier imagined. He has difficulty acknowledging what he has done, admitting at first only to shooting a horse. When the sergeant forces Druse to disclose the truth, that he killed his father, the sergeant, too, resists the knowledge, abruptly walking off after saying “Good God!” (9). Instead of a fuller reckoning with the reality of war, the sergeant retreats with an appeal to heaven, reflecting an inability to directly address the trauma of civil war.