# Barr Lassiter — Can Such Things Be? character guide

> Barr Lassiter in Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** The elder Lassiter, Lassiter

**First appearance:** 0005-the-secret-of-macarger-s-gulch

## Snapshot

A young soldier returning from war to a home that greets him with silence, a cold hearth, and a family who will not speak his name.

## Who they are

Barr Lassiter walks up the gravel path to the house where he was born, expecting two years of war to have aged him past recognition, and finds every familiar object unchanged but every familiar face turned away. His father withdraws without a word; his mother stares into cold ashes; his sister passes him as though he were a stranger. The ache of that rejection drives him back to camp and then back again the next day, where a former playmate waits to tell him what the moonlight would not.

## Relationships

### [Bushrod Albro](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/bushrod_albro)

_rivalry_

Barr Lassiter and Bushrod Albro are sworn enemies, competing for power in a small, superstitious town.

### [Bushrod Albro](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/bushrod_albro)

_rivalry_

Barr Lassiter and Bushrod Albro are sworn enemies, competing for power in a small, superstitious town.

## In the story

### [Three and One Are One](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/chapters/three-and-one-are-one)

A Union soldier returning to his family home after two years, only to find his family dead and their house destroyed.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/barr_lassiter
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters