The Peculiar Truth about the Disappearing Author

• December 16, 1913: Famous American journalist and author Ambrose Bierce wrote a letter to his niece. It stated, “If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a gringo in Mexico -- ah, that is euthanasia.”

• On the day after Christmas, he wrote her again from Chihuahua. He was en route to Ojinaga with Pancho Villa’s army who were about to battle against Mexican troops. That was the last letter he ever sent.

• No one ever heard from Ambrose Bierce again.

• In his era, that was a major mystery. Imagine Stephen Fry or Bill Mahr going off to be war correspondents and vanishing without a trace. Bierce’s disappearance had that kind of impact.

• In his era, Ambrose Bierce was one of the most accomplished writers in the United States. He was known for his biting satirical wit, which provided him the nickname ‘Bitter Bierce.’

• He leaped to literary prominence with his much-read short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Its nonlinear plot line and surprise ending gained him a reputation as a keen writer.

• The story takes place during the American Civil War, from which Bierce was a Union Army veteran starting at age 19 through to the end of the conflict. He saw much fighting and gruesome death. Similar published tales, like ‘Chickamauga,’ were the result.

• His personal life was no less tragic. Of his three children, two died as young men. Then his wife left him. Those situations would have embittered anyone.

• Bierce wrote for several newspapers during his 40-year career but was best known for his column in William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner. It was called Prattle. His editorials, which were often controversial, ran from 1887 to 1909. Despite the headaches he caused to the newspaper, Hearst kept Bierce on his payroll.

• Bierce’s best known book was The Devil’s Dictionary, a compendium of satirical dictionary-like explanations published in 1906. Examples:

• MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.

• FAMOUS, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

• SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.

• TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.

• Bierce split his time between the West Coast and Washington, DC. But in 1899 he relocated to the nation’s capital for good while still contributing to Hearst’s newspaper. He left the news business in 1913 but found retirement dull.

• After visiting old Civil War battle sites, Bierce ventured through Texas to Mexico. He bore witness to a clash led by Pancho Villa, the guiding force of the Mexican Revolution.

• During those skirmishes, Bierce wrote to his niece and then disappeared.

• Conspiracy theories flourished. He might have died during a battle in Ojinaga, although there was scant evidence. Some theorized that he was shot when asking for directions. A more recent claim was that Villa grew so fed up with Bierce’s drunken blather that he had the journalist shot. Another theory said that he never met Villa at all and was killed by Federal soldiers.

• The Secret Service and the Pinkerton Detective Agency searched for Bierce or his remains in Mexico but never found a trace of the 71-year-old literary celebrity. Whatever calamity befell him remains a mystery to this day. And as he wrote in the Devil’s Dictionary:

• CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering.

  ALSO:

• In 1985, Carlos Fuentes published a novel about Bierce’s disappearance titled The Old Gringo. It was made into a 1989 film of the same name starring Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda.