R U S S E L L R O T H Minneapolis, Minnesota Ambrose Bierce’s “Detestable Creature” “The best soldier of our staff was Lieutenant Herman Brayle, one of the two aides-de-camp,” states the unnamed narrator of Ambrose Bierce’s Civil War tale “Killed at Resaca,” which appears in In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891). “I don’t remem ber where the general picked him up; from some Ohio regiment, I think; none of us had previously known him . . .” In appearance, “he was a very striking and conspicuous figure,” with “a gentleman’s manners, a scholar’s head, and a lion’s heart. His age was about thirty. “We all soon came to like Brayle as much as we admired him, and it was with sincere concern that in the engagement at Stone’s River — our first action after he joined us — we observed that he had one most objectionable and unsoldierly quality: he was vain of his courage.” That apparent vanity is the main thread of the story. Brayle is variously shown, sitting his horse “like an equestrian statue, in a storm of bullets and grape, in the most exposed places;” standing “like a rock in the open when officers and men alike had taken to cover;” remaining with a captain’s body, “adjusting the limbs with needless care — there in the middle of a road swept by gusts of grape and canister!” The end comes when Brayle, ordered to take a message to a colonel at the battle of Resaca, in Georgia, elects to go on horseback, in the full dress uniform he always wears, across the chord of the arc formed by the Union forces confronting the Confederate earthworks — in front of his own lines, that is— with the general frantically shouting at his back, “Stop that damned fool!” Brayle dies, horse down, “in the shot-swept space, motionless, his face toward the enemy. . . . He could not go forward, he would not turn back; he stood awaiting death. It did not keep him long waiting.” Also, as another result of his action, "No longer regardful of themselves or their orders, our fellows sprang to their feet, and swarming into the open sent broad sheets of bullets against the blazing crest of the offending works, which poured an answering fire into their unprotected groups with deadly effect.” 170 Western American Literature Among Brayle’s personal possessions was “a soiled Russia-leather pocketbook. In the distribution of mementoes of our friend, which the general, as administrator, decreed, this fell to me,” continues the narrator: A year after the close of the war, on my way to California, I opened and idly inspected it. Out of an overlooked compart ment fell a letter without envelope or address. It was in a woman’s handwriting, and began with words of endearment, but no name. It had the following date line: “San Francisco, Cal., July 9, 1862.” The signature was “Darling,” in marks of quotation. Incidentally, in the body of the text, the writer’s full name was given — Marian Mendenhall. The letter showed evidence of cultivation and good breeding, but it was an ordinary love letter, if a love letter can be ordinary. There was not much in it, but there was something. It was this: “Mr. Winters, whom I shall always hate for it, has been telling that at some battle in Virginia, where he got his hurt, you were seen crouching behind a tree. I think he wants to injure you in my regard, which he knows the story would do if I believed it. I could bear to hear of my soldier lover’s death, but not of his cowardice.” These were the words which on that sunny afternoon, in a distant region, had slain a hundred men. Is woman weak? One evening I called on Miss Mendenhall to return the letter to her. I intended, also, to tell her what she had done — but not that she did it. I found her in a handsome dwelling on Rincon Hill. She was beautiful, well bred — in a word, charming. “You knew Lieutenant Herman Brayle,” I said, rather abruptly. “You know...