# John Ericsson — Poetry character guide

> John Ericsson in Poetry by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0000-poetry

## Snapshot

The engineer whose name became a byword for the Monitor's iron will, invoked in Bierce's verse as a symbol of stubborn Yankee ingenuity.

## Who they are

Ericsson belongs to the poem's gallery of public figures whose reputations Bierce treats as fair game for satire. He stands for the practical inventor-hero, a man whose fame rests on a single ironclad triumph, and whose name is tossed about by poets and critics who never built anything themselves. His presence in the collection anchors the running quarrel between real makers and the parasitic commentators who feed on them.

## In the story

### [On Stone: Some Ante-Mortem Epitaphs](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/on-stone-some-ante-mortem-epitaphs)

Epitaph VI mocks the monument built to him, noting it was funded by a percentage of what was robbed from him while alive.

### [VI: Reparation](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/vi-reparation)

The subject of the monument, lying in his fame after death.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/characters/john_ericsson
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- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/characters