Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
A year wrote Ambrose Bierce is quote a period of three hundred and sixty five disappointments. Ambrose was an American Civil War veteran, and he was also a writer. He was one of the most famous journalists of the late nineteenth century. He was a literary critic, a poet, and a short story writer, primarily exploring themes of war, death, and the general absurdity of life. He had a caustic wit and was a sharp tongued, eviscerating cynic. It said he kept both a human skull and a cigar box
of supposedly an enemy's ashes on his desk. His motto in life was quote nothing matters. He's been called an editorialist, a journalist, and a fabulist, and a veteran and one of the biggest disappearing acts of the twentieth century. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarky.
And I'm Holly Frye. Ambrose Beers disappeared when he was seventy one years old. He wrote Into Mexico, and that's about the last anyone ever heard from him. But before we talk about his many deaths that have been described since his disappearance, let's talk about his very big life. Ambrose Gwinnet Beers was born on June twenty fourth, eighteen forty two, the tenth of thirteen children to Marcus Aurelius
and Laura Beerce. The Beers family lived in Horse Cave Creek, Ohio, a primarily fundamentalist community that was close to the West Virginia border. His father was a farmer but held several jobs, including shopkeeper, and he'd been elected to county Overseer of the Poor. That was a position that was responsible for administering reals leaf such as food and clothing, and supervising care of those living in poverty. He was never a successful man, at least not when it came to money
or influence. He and Laura were, though, avid readers, and some argued that the family's book collection could be the largest in the county. Though Ambrose never had much good to say about his family, he did not see eye to eye with their long standing puritanical ways, he did concede that his father's book collection was what turned him into a serious reader and influenced his writing career.
The Beers family moved to Walnut Creek, Indiana, when Ambrose was four years old, and for the next eleven years he acted well as far as we can tell pretty aloof from his siblings and his classmates. He wasn't interested in making friends. We came across as one anecdote that if you gave him a puppy, he'd prefer a snake. At age fifteen, Ambrose left his family to work as a printer's Devil for the Northern Indiana, an abolitionist newspaper. A printer's devil is really just an apprentice with a
fancy name. His father had been an early anti slavery advocate, and some biographers assume he may have influenced Ambrose's decision to join that particular paper. But then it's also really well documented that Ambrose wanted to get away from his family, So here we are just speculating some more on his motivations. When he left the paper after two years, he may or may not have been accused of theft by his employer, leading him to exit, but only after his name had
been cleared. Or maybe that's just a yarn and it was just time to move on. And it did move his personal story along. His next move landed him in the home of his paternal uncle, Lucius Bears in Ohio.
Lucius was a strong, intelligent, and moral man, and Ambrose admired him greatly. He wanted to be just like him in both his personal and professional life. Ambrose's family was strongly abolitionist. Lucius also was, but Ambrose liked that his uncle was not just talk. He was a man of action. There are many examples of that action, but an important one is that he helped supply John Brown with the
weapons for his bold fight in Kansas. We have seen Lucius described as a quote man who liked to argue and had an appealing swagger, a man who'd witnessed a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, and became an even more ardent abolitionist than Bierce's father. Lucius once organized a company of infantry and two companies of marines for battlefield service, but mostly he did not fight himself. Lucius was elected to the Ohio Senate, where he supported the war effort
through legislation. In fact, in his bellowing opinion, the Union should be hitting the Confederacy even harder. In eighteen sixty three, Lucius was appointed Assistant Adjutant General of the United States Volunteers with the rank of major. Ambrose credited his uncle for giving him a strong moral compass and the confidence to speak out for his beliefs, even if they were
contrary to the popular opinion. We're going to take a break here for a word from our sponsors, and when we return we'll talk about Ambrosebier's first lieutenant.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Ambrose had a big military life and he had a big life as a writer, so let's talk about both of those things.
Over the years, Ambrose emerged as a renowned writer, but before that course of events could be set into motion, Ambrose went to war. At age seventeen, he enrolled at the Kentucky Military Institute and trained to become a topographical engineer. That's someone who makes maps after collecting information and data
about the area to be mapped. He was one of the first to enlist in the ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment for the Union at the start of the American Civil War, which officially began shortly after he left the Institute. He fought with the ninth Indiana Infantry Regiment and Buell's Army of the Ohio in military engagements that included the Battle of Shiloh, the Battle of Stones River, the Battle
of Chickamauga, and the Battle of Missionary Ridge. Also the Battle of Pickett's Mill, the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, and Sherman's March to the Sea. The list is really quite lengthy. He served on and off for most of the duration of the war, and during his service he received numerous citations for bravery, and he rode to the rank of first lieutenant.
Ambrose is considered to have been an admirable soldier who was also quite brave. For example, on July eleventh, eighteen sixty one, at the Battle of Rich Mountain, his first heavy combat situation, he received recognition for carrying a seriously wounded officer off the battlefield to safety while himself under fire from the enemy. In general, Bierce looked down upon
those who behaved what he considered cowardly in battle. In Indiana newspaper published an article stating that quote in open view of the enemy, Bierce acted heroically as bullets were quote again falling around him. Like Hale. He later wrote fictionalized and semi fictionalized narratives of what he saw that day and during the rest of his time at war in his short stories.
During fierce combat in the Battle of Kenesam Mountain in June of eighteen sixty four, Ambrose was wounded when Confederate marksman shot him in the head. Yes, the bullet fractured Bears's temporal bone and it got stuck in his skull, lodged behind his left ear. This was not a fatal shot, but there were complications from the injury, and he was placed on medical leave for months. Ambrose became prone to severe headaches, dizziness, and sudden fainting spells, and those would
last for the rest of his life. He later wrote of his injury, quote at night, the bright, cold moonlight gave him quote jarring headaches. Despite the injury, he returned to duty during September of that same year, but he was discharged on January twenty fifth, eighteen sixty five, at the age of twenty two. He would often later recall in his writing that his head had quote broken like a walnut.
He resumed his military career for just one year in eighteen sixty six, when he joined General William Hazen on an expedition inspecting military outposts across the Great Plains while mapping the topography from Nebraska to California. Later, Ambrose would write of him quote the best hated man I ever knew.
When they arrived on the West Coast, Ambrose decided to settle in San Francisco, where he left the army and began a literary career. Though many critics have said of him that he may have left the war, but the war never left him, and that's true on many levels, including in his writing. In eighteen sixty eight, he was hired on with a newspaper called The Newsletter, for which
he penned a column titled town Crier. That column became a place for him to stretch his acerbic satire and wit, and he went all in on exposing and attacking any public figures and institutions that he considered guilty of hypocrisy. And he was a success, at least locally.
On Christmas Day of eighteen seventy one, amb Gross married Mary Day known as Molly, the daughter of a wealthy miner. Her father gifted them a honeymoon trip overseas. This was the first time Ambrose had been to London, and he and Molly stayed in England for much longer than their honeymoon. The couple had two sons, Richard known as Day and
Lee while living in London. Their daughter, Helen, was born in October of eighteen seventy five, but that was shortly after their return to the United States.
In London, Ambrose began writing under the pseudonym DoD Grile for Tom Hood's Fun and for Figuaro, a popular Victorian weekly humor magazine. He also published three collections of columns, sketches, and fiction under that alias while abroad. The level of cynicism weaved into the pieces in these books, as well as in articles that he wrote for London papers, landed him the nickname Bitter beerce his motto nothing matters well that probably contributed to.
In eighteen seventy seven, again living in the United States,
Ambrose became associate editor of the San Francisco Argonaut. He left to become editor of the San Francisco Illustrated Wasp, and then in eighteen eighty seven he joined the staff of William Randolpherst's San Francisco Examiner, for which he wrote the Prattler column, where he specialized in attacking all kinds of things, from amateur poets, the clergy, politicians, money grabbers, those he considered boring, and frauds of all shapes and sizes.
He also put together a collection of what many have called pessimistic and satirical themes, a now famous book of social commentary that's really just loosely disguised as definitions, titled The Devil's Dictionary. And here's an example quote litigation noun a machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage. He was known for his sardonic wit and bad observations on the personalities and events of his day, and it turned him into quote,
the wickedest man in San Francisco. Despite that reputation, he was also known as a generous mentor to younger writers, including poet George Sterling and fiction author W. C. Morrow.
Between eighteen eighty eight and nineteen oh five, Ambrose couldn't seem to escape tragedy in his personal life. Both of his sons predeceased him. Day took his own life at the age of seventeen after being rejected by a romantic interest in eighteen eighty nine, and Lee, his younger son, passed away from alcohol related pneumonia in nineteen oh one
at the age of twenty seven. The same year as Lee's death, Bierce's daughter Helen, spent eight uncertain weeks in a hospital recovering from typhoid fever, but she did recover. In eighteen eighty eight, he and his wife separated after he discovered compromising letters sent to Molly from an admirer. Molly died on April twenty seventh, nineteen oh five, just before their divorce was finalized.
In eighteen ninety nine, Ambrose moved to Washington, d c. Where he continued newspaper and magazine writing for more roughly the next fourteen years. He also focused more on writing short stories and poems. Originally published in nineteen oh six under the title The Cynic's Word Book. The Devil's Dictionary, which we mentioned earlier, was one of his best known works, has been called quote, a volume of ironic, even bitter
definitions that has often been reprinted. He's perhaps best known for his anthologized short story titled An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, about a Southern plantation owner who attempts to sabotage a railroad bridge and is condemned to be hanged by Union soldiers. Elements and theme is drawn from his war experiences at Chickamauga, Shiloh, and Kennassau Mountain all together
in this work. Bierce's war experiences proved to be so influential to him and his work that biographer Richard O'Connor commented of it, quote, war was the making of Beers as a man.
And a writer.
Bierce himself wrote, quote, When I ask myself what has become of Ambrose Bierce, the youth who fought at Chickamauga, I am bound to answer that he is dead.
You can't argue Ambrose Bierce had a lasting legacy. But that legacy isn't necessarily his writing or his military successes. It's his disappearance. We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors, and when we're back, we'll ask the question, what the heck happened to Ambrose Biers.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Ambrosepierce disappeared while trying to allegedly gain first hand experience in the Mexican Revolution. Was he killed in action? Was he executed was it aliens? Let's talk about how many theories there are surrounding his disappearance.
In October of nineteen thirteen, at age seventy one, Ambrose organized his personal affairs. He visited the American Civil War battlefields one last time. His plan was then to go to Mexico, find Pancho Villa's forces, and document the Mexican Revolution up close and personal as it was playing out. In a letter to his niece Laura, he wrote, quote, goodbye.
If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age disease or falling down the cellar stairs to be a gringo in Mexico, Ah, that is euthanasia. And then in El Paso, he crossed the border into Mexico on horseback and disappeared.
According to alleged witnesses, Ambrose died over and over again and all over Mexico.
For two decades. After his disappearance, search parties traveled to Mexico to try to solve the mystery. The United States Department of State and Pinkerton Private detectives questioned former officers in Poncho Villa's army. Bierce had written in correspondence that he wanted to join the revolutionary forces as an observer, of course, but no one there recognized Bierce's description or picture.
There were alleged witnesses, and yes we have to air quote that, who claimed to have seen his execution or had heard about it happening. There were problems, though. These witnesses all placed his execution in different states, at different time periods, and conducted by different factions. The search for Ambrose, though, was ultimately curtailed when the United States joined the First World War. There just weren't resources to continue, and that left us with theories.
And there are a lot of theories. Bierce's stated intentions leave many to believe that he did actually travel to Mexico, But then there are different narratives as to what happened once he got there. So let's just begin. Maybe he fell victim to bandits or local militias, suggests one theory.
An alleged witness, this one an American soldier of fortune named tex O'Reilly, claimed that Ambrose was killed by government security forces in the isolated mountain mining camp of Sierra Mohatta because they suspected that the elderly man who didn't speak Spanish was actually a spy. According to O'Reilly, a local who claimed to have housed Beerce for a short time was able to produce letters he'd left behind, each one addressed to Ambrose Bierce.
One newspaper published a story that Ambrose wasn't following Pancho Villa's revolutionary fighters to write about them, and that he wasn't even in Mexico. They reported that instead he was seen in France fighting for the Allies in the World War. There were a lot of odd theories, so we're just gonna wrap these ones up together. There was a story of beers and a magical crystal skull. Really Indiana bears no. Another story suggested that he was seen in a South
American jungle dressed in animal skins. Yes, even the possibility of alien abduction has been considered by some. Things have gotten pretty far fetched in the Ambrose beers theory.
Pool because his body has never been found, you're bound to run into the theory that maybe he's still alive. Yes, there is one rather silly theory out there that Ambrose is alive. While maybe that could have been possible for a decade or two after his disappearance, today he would be one hundred and eighty two years old. So was
there something to that magical crystal skull after all? A few reports over the years have mentioned a middle aged man who looked suspiciously like Beiers, except he was Mexican American writer and journalist Francisco Goldman. Coincidence most certainly.
In his nineteen twenty nine biography Life of Ambrose Biers, author Walter Neil stated quote, his last letters to me were written in December nineteen thirteen. He first wrote from Galveston, next from San Antonio, and a few days later from Laredo, Texas. I know he greatly desired to visit both Eagle Pass and El Paso, but there is also speculation that Beerce's final letters to close friends and family were all a ruse and that he never actually went to Mexico. Heads up.
As we get into this next section, there is a brief mention of suicide. So if you don't want to listen to that, you can just jump forward about a minute. You'll be good. In his nineteen twenty nine biography Life of Ambrose Bierce, author Walter Neil stated quote his last letters to me were written in December nineteen thirteen. He first wrote from Galveston, next from San Antonio, and a few days later from Laredo, Texas. I know he greatly
desired to visit both Eagle Pass and El Paso. But there's also speculation that Bierce's final letters to close friends and family were all a ruse, and that he never actually went to Mexico. Some have considered that he secretly took his own life by jumping off a cliff into the Grand Canyon. Some thought that he went to Mexico as a way of taking his own life, and by that we mean that he went with the assumption that
he would be executed during revolutionary fighting. While there are some stories of his execution by firing squad under the orders of General Thomas Urbina, some scholars believe he may have been killed while fighting with revolutionary forces in the taking of Ohinaga in January of nineteen fourteen, a battle that took place just across the border from the American town of Presidio. We can't forget, after all, that it was his own suggestion that he may be shot in
the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution. Ambrose Bierce clairvoyant, probably not.
Both Beer's biographer, Richard O'Connor and Don Swam, who runs the Ambrose Bierce site, have over the years both concluded that the most likely scenario now still remember that this is not at all proven, is that Biers probably accompanied Pancho Villa's forces to the taking of Okinaga, during which
he was killed and left in a mass grave. Or maybe, if not that they have a backup theory that his quote asthma strained heart gave out on him, or perhaps that traumatic head injury had some new and unforeseen consequences later in his life.
There is no concrete evidence to support any of these ideas. Whatever the real story is, one thing is sure. By the fall of nineteen fourteen, no one had heard from him in several months, and then no one would ever hear from him again. His death is presumed to have been in January of nineteen fourteen.
Whatever may have really happened, Perhaps the most fitting epitaph was offered by Ambrose's fellow iconoclast H. L. Mencken, who wrote, quote death to him was not something repulsive but sort of low comedy, the last act of a squalid and rib rocking buffoonery. When grown old and weary, he departed from Mexico and there, if legend is to be believed, marched into the revolution, then going on and had himself shot. There was certainly nothing in the transaction to surprise his acquaintances.
The whole thing was typically Beiersian. He died happy when maybe sure if his executioners made a botch of dispatching him, if there was a flash of the grotesque at the end.
When he announced he was going to Mexico to see the revolution, he promised, quote nobody, we'll find my bones, and nobody has. But perhaps the best theory in all of this is Beer would have wanted it this way.
He would have wanted it this way, and he would have written about it. Yeah.
I have strong feelings about amberse Beier. He's kind of one of my history crushes. He was cute as a button. He was real cute. But also I just for some random I don't even know how I stumbled across it, but I stumbled across the Devil's Dictionary when I was pretty young. Did you I remember in school one of my teachers saying something about Mark Twain being the great, you know, the greatest humorist of the US, which is often reported, and I remember asking, have you not read Ambrose Biers like.
Your teacher's like, yes, I know who Ambrose Beeers is.
Like, because to me, he's way funnier. Like I just no shade to Mark Twain, but I've never connected with his work the way a lot of people do. And Ambrose Beers really shaped my humor in a lot of ways.
I was I was gonna say, the wit that he has is it's not the same as Mark Twain. Ever, you can't.
Yeah, just that that cynecal really wry aspect to it. I have always loved so I I really really adore Ambrose Beiers in a big way. The Devil's Dictionary is a really fun read if it's one of those great books because of the way that it's laid out as a dictionary, you can just turn to any page any day you need a you need a humorous thing. And it also contains a lot of references to alcohol, which
are many which are very very funny. Like he describes rum, I'm going by memory and not not quoting but he described rum is something that will that makes that drives people mad and crazes them, especially if they don't drink it. Essentially, he's very funny.
He's very funny, and if you haven't had any introduction to him, that is a good place to begin.
I love it. His favorite drink, by many accounts, was cognac, which also endears me to him because.
I love because it's serious too. I love it.
There are like some wild stories about him and drinking, so I knew I wanted to use cognac in his drink. But I also got to thinking that I also wanted to use tequila because of the whole Mexico connection. If that sounds crazy to you to combine these two things, I promise it's been done in drinks before. There's actually a drink called Adulce di Tequila that is very popular that literally means tequila candy. Essentially that combines cognac and tequila.
Although the proportions are flipped from what I'm about to do. Mine is heavier on the cognac and that one is heavier on the tequila. But I also wanted to include other notes to it, and so I started thinking about fruits that are native to Mexico, and we haven't really we have used I think passionfruit liqueur once, but we haven't used passion fruit juice.
Actually, we've only used anything passionfruit.
Wants very delicious in anything. So passion fruit juice is coming. And then we're also going to have a note of violet because in a lot of a lot of cultures that practice magic, violet is one of the things that is used to draw out the truth in rituals, and so I thought that would be a good addition.
So maybe we can get a litld truth around his death right exactly.
So this drink, which I am called dying wish because I do think if there's an afterlife. He loves all of this. He loves that nobody knows what happened and that they're He's like, I.
Told you, you're never gonna find my bones.
He loves that someone thought he was in France. He loves it.
So it's like an alien abduction. Of course that happened. I got to add an entry in my dictionary.
Here is how you make the dying wish. You're gonna do a half ounce of lemon juice, an ounce of passion fruit juice, three quarters of an ounce of violet syrup, and I will tell you at the end you can dial that back if you want, but it does change it a lot. A half ounce of tequila and then an ounce and a half of cognac, and you are gonna shake this in your shaking tin with ice, get it really nice and cold, and strain it into a
pre chilled glass. This is another one of those dangerous ones where you cannot tell there's a ton of kognac and tequila in it. The note that really starts to come through is violet from the syrup, which I actually love because it obscures all of the other ingredients, just the way his story gets completely obscured by all of the question marks. So I really really liked that that happened.
As I said, if you don't like a drink that's sweet, you could dial that back to like a half ounce, but you're not going to get that same impact, but it will be a brighter drink and less sweet. It's so yummy, It's so dangerously yummy. The mock tail, we're going to do some tricks here, so the measures are the same in lieu of kognak, you're going to do an ounce and a half of chai tea. I know chai also means tea, but you know, most of the time when you are in the US, your ki will
be labeled as Chai tea. And then you're gonna do a half ounce of white grape juice. You'll still keep your ounce of passion fruit juice, your half ounce of lemon, and you're three quarters of an ounce of violet syrup. But for the mocktail, you are also going to add into your shaking tin one slice of a fresh holapeno to give it just a little more kickup and counter some of the sugar of having more juice in it
and not as much spirit. So give that a shake, make sure you strain it, perhaps even double strain it to make sure you don't get any little jolopenno seeds in there, and then you are ready to go. I also as an optional garnish, if you have access to fresh violets. It makes it very pretty. It might be too fruitfreugh of a drink for Ambrose Beers himself. He'd be like, just stop at the kognac and keep that coming. But it's a really fun drink and I do like
that it kind of plays. It's a nice way to tell his story in the glass because it does obscure itself with all of the other things. So that is the dying wish, which I think might get made at my house with that might go on my canteena menu, is what I'm saying. It'll have to get a Star Wars name to work in there, but it'll happen.
It's still in beta mode.
It's yeah, still, we can do more tweets. We'll still it happens, to see what happens. We are so grateful that you spent this time with us. We hope you like Ambrose Beiers as much as we do. I like this one for this season because it feels a little less tragic and sad than some of our others.
Oh by far.
Hopefully it's been a nice respite for you, the listener, as well as for us. We will be right back here though, next week, with another cold case and another probably cold drink to go with it. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.