An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge recap

Union soldiers prepare to hang a civilian saboteur from an Alabama railroad bridge during the American Civil War. The prisoner is Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate sympathizer who acted after a disguised Federal scout told him the bridge was vulnerable to burning. When the plank drops, Farquhar experiences an extraordinarily vivid escape: the rope breaks, he plunges into the creek, evades gunfire, and makes an exhausting journey home. As he reaches for his wife at the plantation gate, the vision ends. His apparent flight occurred in the last instant of consciousness; his neck has broken and his body hangs dead beneath Owl Creek Bridge.

During the American Civil War, Union soldiers occupy an Alabama railroad bridge over Owl Creek. A civilian prisoner stands on a plank above the water with a rope around his neck and his hands bound. The execution is conducted with strict military formality while guards protect both ends of the bridge. The condemned man looks at the creek below, notices a piece of driftwood moving with strange slowness, and tries to focus on thoughts of his wife and children. A sharp metallic sound seems to repeat in his mind as the moment approaches. At the captain's signal, the sergeant steps away from the shared plank, leaving the prisoner to fall.

The condemned man is Peyton Farquhar, a prosperous Alabama planter devoted to the Confederate cause but not serving as a soldier. Some time before his capture, a man wearing Confederate gray stopped at Farquhar's home and asked for water. He explained that Union troops had repaired the nearby railroad, placed the Owl Creek bridge under guard, and ordered that civilians caught damaging it be hanged. When Farquhar asked how the bridge might be destroyed, the visitor mentioned dry timber that would burn readily. After leaving, the supposed Confederate rode back toward the Union lines: he was a Federal scout who had deliberately tempted Farquhar with the chance to commit sabotage.

Farquhar falls from the bridge and seems to awaken in the creek after the rope breaks. With heightened senses, he frees his hands, reaches the surface, and swims away while Union soldiers fire after him. The current carries him beyond their range, and he reaches land. He then struggles through an unfamiliar forest and travels all night toward home, increasingly exhausted and disoriented. At last he sees his plantation and his wife approaching him. As he reaches to embrace her, he feels a devastating impact at the back of his neck. The entire escape has been a final mental vision during the instant of the drop: Farquhar's neck is broken, and his body hangs dead beneath Owl Creek Bridge.

Farquhar seems to survive the hanging, swim away under gunfire, cross a forest, and reach the gate of his plantation. His wife comes toward him, and he is about to embrace her when he feels a crushing blow at the back of his neck and sees a burst of light. The escape has taken place only in his mind during the instant of his fall. Peyton Farquhar is dead, his neck broken, and his body hangs beneath Owl Creek Bridge.