- 3 months ago
Immerse yourself in the grim realism of Ambrose Bierce's "The Affair at Coulter's Notch," a standout story from his seminal collection, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. This classic war story provides a stark, unvarnished look at the battlefield, focusing on the harrowing experience of a small group of Union soldiers tasked with defending a crucial railroad pass. Bierce, a Civil War veteran, uses his firsthand knowledge to create a powerful narrative that strips away the glory of war and exposes its brutal, absurd, and often tragic nature. The story follows the doomed outpost as they face an overwhelming Confederate assault, with a particular focus on the psychological terror and emotional detachment that defines the soldier's experience.
"The Affair at Coulter's Notch" is a masterclass in Bierce's cynical and unforgiving style. He presents a world where heroic acts are often meaningless, death is sudden and random, and the line between courage and folly is thin. The narrative's strength lies in its intense focus on a single, isolated moment of combat, capturing the chaos and confusion with stunning clarity. This audiobook summary and analysis will explore:
The story’s central theme of futility and the meaninglessness of sacrifice.
Bierce’s use of realistic, detached prose to convey the horrors of war.
The historical context of the Civil War and the 'Lost Cause' myth.
The psychological impact of combat on the soldiers.
Whether you're a history buff, a student of literature, or a fan of classic tales, this deep dive will give you a new appreciation for Bierce's unflinching portrayal of war.
"The Affair at Coulter's Notch" is a masterclass in Bierce's cynical and unforgiving style. He presents a world where heroic acts are often meaningless, death is sudden and random, and the line between courage and folly is thin. The narrative's strength lies in its intense focus on a single, isolated moment of combat, capturing the chaos and confusion with stunning clarity. This audiobook summary and analysis will explore:
The story’s central theme of futility and the meaninglessness of sacrifice.
Bierce’s use of realistic, detached prose to convey the horrors of war.
The historical context of the Civil War and the 'Lost Cause' myth.
The psychological impact of combat on the soldiers.
Whether you're a history buff, a student of literature, or a fan of classic tales, this deep dive will give you a new appreciation for Bierce's unflinching portrayal of war.
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FunTranscript
00:00Gates of Imagination presents The Affair at Coulter's Notch by Ambrose Bierce, read by Billy Dixon.
00:11Do you think, Colonel, that your brave Coulter would like to put one of his guns in here?
00:16the general asked. He was apparently not altogether serious. It certainly did not seem a place where
00:23any artillerist, however brave, would like to put a gun.
00:28The colonel thought that possibly his division commander meant good-humoredly to intimate
00:32that in a recent conversation between them, Captain Coulter's courage had been too highly
00:38extolled. General, he replied warmly, Coulter would like to put a gun anywhere within reach
00:45of those people, with a motion of his hand in the direction of the enemy.
00:49It is the only place, said the general. He was serious then. The place was a depression,
00:56a notch, in the sharp crest of a hill. It was a pass, and through it ran a turnpike,
01:03which reaching this highest point in its course, by a sinuous ascent through a thin forest,
01:09made a similar, though less steep, descent toward the enemy. For a mile to the left and a mile to
01:15the right, the ridge, though occupied by Federal infantry lying close behind the sharp crest and
01:21appearing as if held in place by atmospheric pressure, was inaccessible to artillery. There
01:28was no place but the bottom of the notch, and that was barely wide enough for the roadbed.
01:34From the Confederate side, this point was commanded by two batteries posted on a slightly lower elevation
01:41beyond a creek and a half-mile away. All the guns but one were masked by the trees of an orchard.
01:48That one, it seemed a bit of impudence, was on an open lawn directly in front of a rather grandiose
01:55building, the planter's dwelling. The gun was safe enough in its exposure, but only because the Federal
02:03infantry had been forbidden to fire. Coulter's Notch, it came to be called so, was not, that pleasant
02:10summer afternoon, a place where one would like to put a gun. Three or four dead horses lay there,
02:18sprawling in the road. Three or four dead men in a trim row at one side of it, and a little back down
02:25the hill. All but one were cavalrymen belonging to the Federal advance. One was a quartermaster.
02:33The general, commanding the division, and the colonel, commanding the brigade, with their
02:38staffs and escorts, had ridden into the notch to have a look at the enemy's guns, which had
02:43straightway obscured themselves in towering clouds of smoke. It was hardly profitable to be curious
02:50about guns which had the trick of the cuttlefish, and the season of observation had been brief.
02:56At its conclusion, a short remove backward from where it began, occurred the conversation already
03:02partly reported. It is the only place, the general repeated thoughtfully, to get at them.
03:10The colonel looked at him gravely.
03:13There is room for only one gun, general. One against twelve.
03:18That is true, for only one at a time, said the commander with something like, yet not altogether
03:24like a smile. But then, your brave Coulter, a whole battery in himself. The tone of irony
03:31was now unmistakable. It angered the colonel, but he did not know what to say. The spirit
03:38of military subordination is not favorable to retort, nor even to deprecation.
03:44At this moment, a young officer of artillery came riding slowly up the road, attended by
03:51his bugler. It was Captain Coulter. He could not have been more than twenty-three years of
03:57age. He was of medium height, but very slender and lithe, and sat his horse with something of
04:03the air of a civilian. In face, he was of a type singularly unlike the men about him. Thin,
04:10high-nosed, gray-eyed, with a slight blonde mustache, and long rather straggling hair of
04:17the same color. There was an apparent negligence in his attire. His cap was worn with the visor
04:24a trifle askew, his coat was buttoned only at the sword belt, showing a considerable expanse of
04:31white shirt, tolerably clean for that stage of the campaign. But the negligence was all in his dress
04:37and bearing. In his face was a look of intense interest in his surroundings. His gray eyes,
04:43which seemed occasionally to strike right and left across the landscape, like searchlights,
04:48were for the most part fixed upon the sky beyond the notch. Until he should arrive at the summit of
04:55the road, there was nothing else in that direction to see. As he came opposite his division and brigade
05:01commanders at the roadside, he saluted mechanically and was about to pass on. The colonel signed to
05:08him to halt.
05:09Captain Coulter, he said, the enemy has twelve pieces over there on the next ridge. If I rightly
05:16understand the general, he directs that you bring up a gun and engage them.
05:21There was a blank silence. The general looked stolidly at a distant regiment swarming slowly up the hill
05:29through rough undergrowth, like a torn and draggled cloud of blue smoke. The captain appeared not to
05:35have observed him. Presently, the captain spoke, slowly and with apparent effort.
05:42On the next ridge, did you say, sir? Are the guns near the house? Ah, you have been over this road
05:48before, directly at the house. And it is necessary to engage them? The order is imperative?
05:57His voice was husky and broken. He was visibly paler. The colonel was astonished and mortified.
06:05He stole a glance at the commander. In that set immobile face was no sign. It was as hard as bronze.
06:12A moment later, the general rode away, followed by his staff and escort. The colonel, humiliating,
06:18and indignant, was about to order Captain Coulter in arrest, when the latter spoke a few words in a
06:25low tone to his bugler, saluted, and rode straight forward into the notch, where, presently, at the
06:31summit of the road, his field glass at his eyes, he showed against the sky, he and his horse sharply
06:38defined and statuesque. The bugler had dashed down the speed and disappeared behind a wood.
06:44Presently his bugle was heard singing in the cedars, and, in an incredibly short time, a single gun with
06:52its caisson, each drawn by six horses and manned by its full complement of gunners, came bounding and
06:58banging up the grade in a storm of dust, unlimbered under cover, and was run forward by hand to the
07:04fatal crest among the dead horses. A gesture of the captain's arm, some strangely agile movements of
07:12the men in loading, and almost before the troops along the way had ceased to hear the rattle of the
07:17wheels, a great white cloud sprang forward down the slope, and with a deafening report, the affair at
07:25Coulter's notch had begun. It is not intended to relate in detail the progress and incidents of that
07:32ghastly contest, a contest without vicissitudes, its alternations only different degrees of despair.
07:41Almost at the instant when Captain Coulter's gun blew, its challenging cloud, twelve answering clouds
07:48rolled upward from among the trees about the plantation house. A deep multiple report roared back like a broken
07:55echo, and thenceforth to the end, the federal cannoneers fought their hopeless battle in an atmosphere of
08:03living iron whose thoughts were lightnings and whose deeds were death. Unwilling to see the efforts which he
08:11could not aid and the slaughter which he could not stay, the colonel ascended the ridge at a point a quarter of a
08:17mile to the left, whence the notch, itself invisible, but pushing up successive masses of smoke, seemed the
08:25crater of a volcano in thundering eruption. With his glass, he watched the enemy's guns, noting as he could
08:33the effects of Coulter's fire, if Coulter still lived to direct it. He saw that the federal gunners, ignoring
08:40those of the enemy's pieces, whose positions could be determined by their smoke only, gave their whole
08:46attention to the one that maintained its place in the open, the lawn in front of the house. Over and
08:53about that hardy piece the shells exploded at intervals of a few seconds. Some exploded in the
08:59house, as could be seen by thin ascensions of smoke from the breached roof. Figures of prostrate men and
09:06horses were plainly visible. If our fellows are doing so good work with a single gun, said the
09:14colonel to an aide who happened to be nearest, they must be suffering like the devil from twelve.
09:20Go down and present the commander of that piece with my congratulations on the accuracy of his fire.
09:26Turning to his adjutant general, he said,
09:30Did you observe Coulter's damned reluctance to obey orders?
09:35Yes, sir, I did.
09:37Well, say nothing about it, please. I don't think the general will care to make any accusations.
09:45He will probably have enough to do in explaining his own connection with this uncommon way of amusing
09:51the rear guard of a retreating enemy. A young officer approached from below,
09:58climbing breathless up the acclivity. Almost before he had saluted, he gasped out,
10:03Colonel, I am directed by Colonel Harmon to say that the enemy's guns are within easy reach of our
10:09rifles, and most of them visible from several points along the ridge. The brigade commander looked
10:16at him without a trace of interest in his expression. I know it, he said quietly.
10:23The young adjutant was visibly embarrassed. Colonel Harmon would like to have permission to silence
10:30those guns, he stammered. So should I, the colonel said in the same tone. Present my compliments to
10:38Colonel Harmon, and say to him that the general's orders for the infantry not to fire are still
10:45in force. The adjutant saluted and retired. The colonel ground his heel into the earth and
10:53turned to look again at the enemy's guns. Colonel, said the adjutant general, I don't know that I ought
11:00to say anything, but there is something wrong in all this. Do you happen to know that Captain
11:06Coulter is from the south? No, was he indeed? I heard that last summer the division which the
11:14general then commanded was in the vicinity of Coulter's home, camped there for weeks, and
11:19listen, said the colonel, interrupting with an upward gesture. Do you hear that? That was the
11:28silence of the Federal gun. The staff, the orderlies, the lines of infantry behind the crest, all had
11:35heard and were looking curiously in the direction of the crater, whence no smoke now ascended except
11:42desultory cloudlets from the enemy's shells. Then came the blare of a bugle, a faint rattle of
11:49wheels. A minute later the sharp reports recommenced with double activity. The demolished gun had been
11:56replaced with a sound one. Yes, said the adjutant general, resuming his narrative. The general made
12:03the acquaintance of Coulter's family. There was trouble, I don't know the exact nature of it,
12:09something about Coulter's wife. She is a red-hot secessionist, as they all are, except Coulter
12:15himself, but she is a good wife and high-bred lady. There was a complaint to army headquarters.
12:22The general was transferred to this division. It is odd that Coulter's battery should afterward
12:27have been assigned to it. The colonel had risen from the rock upon which they had been sitting.
12:34His eyes were blazing with a generous indignation.
12:39See here, Morrison, said he, looking his gossiping staff officer straight in the face.
12:45Did you get that story from a gentleman or a liar?
12:49I don't want to say how I got it, Colonel, unless it is necessary, he was blushing a trifle,
12:57but I'll stake my life upon its truth in the main.
13:00The colonel turned toward a small knot of officers some distance away.
13:06Lieutenant Williams! he shouted.
13:08One of the officers detached himself from the group and, coming forward, saluted, saying,
13:14Pardon me, Colonel, I thought you had been informed.
13:17Williams is dead down there by the gun. What can I do, sir?
13:21Lieutenant Williams was the aide who had had the pleasure of conveying to the officer in charge of
13:26the gun his brigade commander's congratulations.
13:30Go, said the colonel, and direct the withdrawal of that gun instantly.
13:35No, I'll go myself.
13:38He strode down the declivity toward the rear of the notch at a breakneck pace,
13:43over rocks and through brambles, followed by his little retinue in tumultuous disorder.
13:48At the foot of the declivity, they mounted their waiting animals and took to the road at a lively trot,
13:56round a bend and into the notch.
13:58The spectacle which they encountered there was appalling.
14:03Within that defile, barely broad enough for a single gun,
14:07were piled the wrecks of no fewer than four.
14:10They had noted the silencing of only the last one disabled.
14:14There had been a lack of men to replace it quickly with another.
14:19The debris lay on both sides of the road.
14:22The men had managed to keep an open way between,
14:25through which the fifth piece was now firing.
14:28The men?
14:29They looked like demons of the pit.
14:33All were hatless, all stripped to the waist,
14:36their reeking skins black with blotches of powder and spattered with gouts of blood.
14:41They worked like madmen, with rammer and cartridge, lever and lanyard.
14:47They set their swollen shoulders and bleeding hands against the wheels at each recoil
14:51and heaved the heavy gun back to its place.
14:55There were no commands.
14:56In that awful environment of whooping shot, exploding shells,
15:01shrieking fragments of iron and flying splinters of wood,
15:05none could have been heard.
15:06Officers, if officers there were, were indistinguishable.
15:11All worked together, each while he lasted, governed by the eye.
15:17When the gun was sponged, it was loaded.
15:20When loaded, aimed and fired.
15:23The colonel observed something new to his military experience,
15:27something horrible and unnatural.
15:30The gun was bleeding at the mouth.
15:32In temporary default of water, the man's sponging had dipped his sponge into a pool of comrade's blood.
15:40In all this work, there was no clashing.
15:43The duty of the instant was obvious.
15:46When one fell, another, looking a trifle cleaner,
15:50seemed to rise from the earth in the dead man's tracks, to fall in his turn.
15:54With the ruined guns lay the ruined men, alongside the wreckage, under it and atop of it,
16:03and back down the road, a ghastly procession,
16:07crept on hands and knees, such of the wounded as were able to move.
16:12The colonel, he had compassionately sent his cavalcade to the right about,
16:17had to ride over those who were entirely dead in order not to crush those who were partly alive.
16:22Into that hell, he tranquilly held his way, rode up alongside the gun,
16:29and in the obscurity of the last discharge, tapped upon the cheek the man holding the rammer,
16:36who straightway fell, thinking himself killed.
16:40A fiend seven times damned sprang out of the smoke to take his place,
16:45but paused and gazed up at the mounted officer with an unearthly regard,
16:49his teeth flashing between his black lips, his eyes, fierce and expanded,
16:56burning like coals beneath his bloody brow.
16:59The colonel made an authoritative gesture and pointed to the rear.
17:03The fiend bowed in token of obedience.
17:06It was Captain Coulter.
17:09Simultaneously with the colonel's arresting sign,
17:12silence fell upon the whole field of action.
17:15The procession of missiles no longer streamed into that defile of death,
17:20for the enemy also had ceased firing.
17:23His army had been gone for hours,
17:26and the commander of his rear guard,
17:28who had held his position perilously long in hope to silence the federal fire,
17:33at that strange moment,
17:35had silenced his own.
17:36I was not aware of the breadth of my authority,
17:41said the colonel to anybody,
17:43riding forward to the crest to see what had really happened.
17:47An hour later his brigade was in bivouac on the enemy's ground,
17:51and its idlers were examining with something of awe,
17:55as the faithful inspect a saint's relics,
17:57a score of straddling dead horses and three disabled guns,
18:02all spiked.
18:03The fallen men had been carried away.
18:07Their torn and broken bodies would have given too great satisfaction.
18:12Naturally, the colonel established himself and his military family
18:16in the plantation house.
18:18It was somewhat shattered, but it was better than the open air.
18:22The furniture was greatly deranged and broken.
18:26Walls and ceilings were knocked away here and there,
18:29and a lingering odor of powder smoke was everywhere.
18:32The beds, the closets of women's clothing,
18:35and the cupboards were not greatly damaged.
18:38The new tenants for a night made themselves comfortable,
18:42and the virtual effacement of Coulter's battery
18:44supplied them with an interesting topic.
18:48During supper, an orderly of the escort
18:50showed himself into the dining room
18:52and asked permission to speak to the colonel.
18:54What is it, Barbour?
18:57said that officer pleasantly,
18:59having overheard the request.
19:01Colonel, there is something wrong in the cellar.
19:04I don't know what.
19:05Somebody there.
19:06I was down there rummaging about.
19:08I will go down and see,
19:10said a staff officer, rising.
19:13So will I,
19:14the colonel said.
19:16Let the others remain.
19:18Lead on,
19:19orderly.
19:19They took a candle from the table
19:24and descended the cellar stairs,
19:26the orderly, invisible trepidation.
19:29The candle made but a feeble light,
19:31but presently, as they advanced,
19:34its narrow circle of illumination
19:36revealed a human figure
19:37seated on the ground
19:39against the black stone wall
19:41which they were skirting.
19:43Its knees elevated,
19:44its head bowed sharply forward.
19:46The face,
19:48which should have been seen in profile,
19:50was invisible,
19:52for the man was bent so far forward
19:54that his long hair concealed it,
19:56and, strange to relate,
19:58the beard,
19:59of a much darker hue,
20:01fell in a great tangled mass
20:03and lay along the ground at his side.
20:05They involuntarily paused.
20:08Then the colonel,
20:08taking the candle
20:09from the orderly's shaking hand,
20:12approached the man
20:12and attentively considered him.
20:14The long, dark beard
20:17was the hair of a woman,
20:19dead.
20:20The dead woman
20:21clasped in her arms
20:23a dead babe.
20:24Both were clasped
20:25in the arms of the man,
20:27pressed against his breast,
20:29against his lips.
20:30There was blood
20:31in the hair of the woman.
20:33There was blood
20:33in the hair of the man.
20:36A yard away,
20:37near an irregular depression
20:39in the beaten earth
20:40which formed the cellar's floor,
20:42fresh excavation
20:44with a convex bit of iron,
20:46having jagged edges
20:47visible in one of the sides,
20:49lay an infant's foot.
20:52The colonel held the light
20:53as high as he could.
20:55The floor of the room above
20:56was broken through,
20:58the splinters pointing
20:59at all angles downward.
21:01This casemate
21:02is not bomb-proof,
21:04said the colonel gravely.
21:06It did not occur to him
21:07that his summing up
21:08of the matter
21:09had any levity in it.
21:11The man
21:12stood about the group
21:14a while in silence.
21:16The staff officer
21:17was thinking
21:17of his unfinished supper,
21:19the orderly
21:20of what might possibly be
21:21in one of the casks
21:22on the other side
21:23of the cellar.
21:25Suddenly,
21:26the man whom
21:26they had thought dead
21:27raised his head
21:28and gazed tranquilly
21:30into their faces.
21:32His complexion
21:33was coal black.
21:34The cheeks
21:35were apparently tattooed
21:36in irregular sinuous lines
21:38from the eyes downward.
21:40The lips, too,
21:41were pale,
21:41as though powdered
21:42for the stage.
21:44There was blood
21:45upon his forehead.
21:47The staff officer
21:47drew back a pace,
21:49the orderly,
21:50two paces.
21:51What are you doing here,
21:53my man?
21:54said the colonel,
21:55unmoved.
21:56This house belongs
21:58to me, sir,
21:59was the reply,
22:00civilly delivered.
22:02To you?
22:03Ah, I see.
22:05And these?
22:06My wife and child.
22:09I am Captain Coulter.
22:10Thank you for listening
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