Peyton Farquhar, Slave Owner and Student of Hanging

Ambrose Bierce published “An Occurrence at Owl Creek” in 1890, after not only the Civil War but after paltry attempts at Reconstruction which had since been abandoned. In the late 19th century America was more interested in rebuilding the country for its white citizens who were trying to figure out how to regain their economic standing now that slavery had been done away with than it was in creating a fair and equal opportunity for the African descendents whose hands had built this country. The ratification of the 13th amendment in 1865 created a loophole that allowed for those found guilty of crime to be forced into slave labor, and as the century came to a close an uptick in lynchings spread across the south. The language that Bierce, the son of abolitionists, used in this story is codified in such a way as to create a comparison between the hanging of Peyton Farquhar and the lynching of thousands of Black Americans, which reached its peak only two years later.

The story opens with the anti-hero standing on Owl Creek Bridge waiting for the sentence he has received to be carried out. Immediately in this first paragraph the reader is given a picture of an execution about to take place for reasons not completely known by all involved in the initial paragraph, “It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge…” Part I culminates with Farquhar thinking of his family; fantasizing of an escape in the last seconds prior to the soldiers stepping aside and allowing him to fall off the bridge.

This introduction to “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” doesn’t have the obvious allusions to race issues and lynching that Parts II and III do, but upon further examination it is obvious to see that there are similarities between the situation Farquhar finds himself in and the lynchings that are becoming more common at the time the story was written. A lynching is defined as a killing perpetrated in public by a group of people without the benefit of a trial. The man seen in this vignette has been captured during the War and has not had the benefit of any sort of tribunal. “Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators—a single company of infantry in line…” Farquhar’s execution is public, there is an audience to witness this death and while lynchings have included other types of violence, they are stereotypically hangings. The fact that this story begins with details about the rope and specifics regarding how the execution will occur does bring to mind the idea of hanging. For example the opening of the story tells us, “The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck.”

In Part II the narrator discloses that this man is a slave owner and supporter of the Confederacy. It quickly becomes clear that he did not sign up as a soldier due to his lack of interest in following the orders of an authority figure, but rather impatiently waited to strike out on his own to perform what he felt was a necessary, if unordained, act. A soldier thought to be with the South appears at Farquhar’s plantation and shares news of a Yankee order to hang anyone attempting to impede Oak Creek Bridge. At this point the slaveholder refers to himself as a student of hanging and a plan begins to form in his mind.

In this section, Bierce intentionally describes Mrs. Farquhar’s hands as white, saying that “...she was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands.” The only reason this sentence is necessary is to let us know that Peyton’s wife sees the Confederate soldier as too good to be served by their slaves. It also brings about the idea of her purity as a white woman who is unblemished by interracial relations, which was a common reasoning for the lynching of Black men. As a matter of fact, except for his fantasies of her and the children, this is the only purpose she serves in the entire story. At the end of Part II, the soldier is said to ceremoniously thank her for the water, just as Farquhar is ceremoniously put to death. It is a false sense of respect because this soldier is actually a Federal scout that has tricked the plantation owner into attempting to burn down the bridge.

When Farquhar is speaking to the scout-in-disguise, he refers to himself as a student of hanging. The reader is left to wonder what he could possibly mean by this. He is not a serviceman, therefore, it is not his duty to execute civilians or soldiers found to be traitors. One interpretation might be that he has performed lynchings. This would not take a big leap to assume; the narrator has already told us that Farquhar is from a well known Alabama family, a slave owner, a secessionist, and a politician. It would be more surprising to discover that he had not ever been involved in stringing up a Black man.

In the final section of “Owl Creek Bridge” the reader is vaulted back to the main character falling into the water. The narrator describes Farquhar’s distress as he tries to free himself from the rope that he is bound in. As he drowns he feels flames of heat and coldness and sees bright lights and darkness. As soon as his head is above water again, his eyes settle on the forest and he sees the trees in amazing detail, perhaps as one hung from a tree would in their final moments. 
When he finally reaches a road that he knows is headed in the right direction, the narrator claims “The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides…” and “full of singular noises, among which-once, twice, and again- he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue”. This language clearly evokes the bodies of Black slaves watching the slaveholder walking towards his ultimate death, deserved retribution for the lives that he took and harmed during his 35 years of life. The very next paragraph begins, “His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it he found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it”. At this point there is a recognition of the noose bringing about Farquhar’s fatal injury. Just as he held Black folks in bondage, he also ended up dying of bondage with a rope.

In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” Ambrose Bierce uses racially codified language to evoke the idea of lynching, which was happening in the United States in record numbers at the time that he was writing the story. He uses Mrs. Farquhar’s pure, white hands to show the reason that many men would give for lynching: to protect their wives and families from the aggression and lustful desires of Black men. He calls attention to the fact that Peyton has enough knowledge and experience with hangings to call himself a student of this form of execution. Finally, Bierce tells us that the Black bodies of the trees, which he continually notices throughout his journey, are lining the road as he makes his way to the final destination. Farquhar’s livelihood and ability to support his family was dependent upon his treatment and ownership of slaves, and his death was dependent upon his support for the Southern cause in the Civil War.