“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” takes place in northern Alabama during the Civil War. Ambrose Bierce, who was a Union soldier, purposefully chooses this setting because it is deep in the South and represents the Confederacy and the plantation society—a society of which Bierce is critical. Alabama is explicitly mentioned in the first line of the story, along with the bridge itself: "A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below."
Bierce does not specify a particular year in which the story takes place. This lack of specificity contributes to the overall unsettling mood of the story and reinforces Bierce’s criticism of the war, since Farquhar’s story feels general, as if it could have happened at any time in the war and to any Confederate supporter. This lack of a more specific setting contributes to the role of the story in illuminating the harsh realities of war.
Other than the state of Alabama, the only other specific geographic information about the setting is about the Owl Creek bridge itself, which serves as the focal point of the story. The entire story revolves around the bridge: it is Farquhar’s goal to destroy the bridge to stop the Union, and when he fails, it is where he dies.
