The entire story of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
takes place on a railroad bridge in Northern Alabama during the American Civil War.
Other events happen in the condemned man's (Peyton Farquar) mind, but the all of the
actual action takes place on the bridge.
The railroad
bridge is situated above Owl Creek (not a river!) with a small military fort located at
one end. The tracks disappear into a forest about 100 yards away. The bank of the stream
opposite the forest included
... a gentle slope topped with a stockade of
vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which
protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the
bridge.
A temporary
scaffolding was placed upon the tracks in a manner in which the condemned man would
fall between the crossties. Farquar noticed mists downriver below
the bridge.
Told in a flashback fashion, Chapter II reverts
to Farquar's Alabama plantation some 30 miles away where he meets a thirsty soldier
while sitting on a "rustic bench" on the edge of his property. Chapter III then
flash-forwards to Farquar's imagined escape. After surviving the hanging, he manages to
swim downstream and disappear into the forest, in which he travels all night before
arriving back at his plantation home.
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