Innocent people are killed in both cases. War is a common theme in romance, characterized by images of valiant warriors, exciting battles, and glory. Bierce counters this by showing realistic outcomes of the war; a family man trying to do his part is hanged, a child is orphaned, and disfigured men crawl helplessly towards the water. Bierce's writing style has been called "realism", as he attempts to shed light on what war really is. Bierce was inclined to write about war as he was himself a Civil War veteran. His status as a veteran actually makes his descriptions of the wounded even more disturbing, as it is a realistic depiction based on things he had actually seen. The stories are not so much an indictment of the war itself but rather of people's distorted perception of the war. Bierce paints a picture of war for what it really is; a tragic and horrible thing, rather than glorious