An Occurrence at Owl
Creek Bridge
• A man is about to be executed by army
officers.
• The man that is about to be executed is
a civilian (probably a planter).
• Before he is executed the man thinks
about his wife and children and how he
might be able to escape.
• Peyton Farquhar is a southern slave owner
with Confederate sympathies, but is unable
to enlist in the Confederate Army although he
really wants to fight.
• A Confederate soldier stops by Farquhar’s
house one day for water and tells him about
the Union Army at Owl Creek Bridge and how
they are rebuilding the railroads. The Union
Army threatens to hang anyone who
interferes with its progress.
• Farquhar and the soldier covertly
discuss how the bridge might be taken
down.
• The Confederate soldier turns out to be
a Union spy.
• The rope breaks and Farquhar falls into
the stream. He gets the rope off of his
wrists and takes the noose from around
his neck.
• He swims to the surface and finds that his
senses seem very acute.
• The soldiers begin to shoot at him.
• Farquhar begins to swim with the current
and gets caught in a whirlpool which throws
him onto the bank.
• He makes it back home to his wife, but as he
is about to embrace her, the reader learns
that the entire escape was a fantasy and
Farquhar dies.