"A Horseman in the Sky" is a heavily anthologized short story by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer Ambrose Bierce.

It was published on April 14, 1889 under the title The Horseman in the Sky in the Sunday edition of The Examiner, a San Francisco newspaper owned by William Randolph Hearst.

[2] The central character is a young Virginian, named Carter Druse, who decides to fight for the Union, betraying his state.

In the first version of the story, Druse, presented with an impossible choice between patriotic duty and filial obedience, loses his mind.

[2] It has been argued that Bierce's rewriting of the tale, and Carter Druse's reaction to his father's death, reflects the author's attempt to come to terms with his own wartime trauma, specifically his head wound that has been diagnosed as a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

[4] Carlos Fuentes's novel The Old Gringo (1985), a fictionalized account of Bierce's disappearance, contains numerous allusions to "A Horseman in the Sky".