Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842 - 1914) was the tenth child in a family of thirteen born on a simple farm in Meigs County, Ohio. He joined the Union army as a private and distinguished himself in many engagements throughout the War Between the States, including the horrific battle of Shiloh. By war's end, he had been commissioned a major. But Bierce despised war and grew to see in it nothing but pain and wasted lives. He moved to San Francisco in the 1870s and drifted into a career as a journalist and then as a writer of short stories. To his friends he was known as "Bitter" Bierce. A well-traveled and troubled man, he constantly relived the horror of war, and was obsessed by the specter of sudden death. Disappearing into Mexico in 1913, he was never seen again.