# The Lost Colonel — Poetry character guide

> The Lost Colonel in Poetry by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0000-poetry

## Snapshot

A colonel who has gone missing from the record — a ghost of military honor in a collection where soldiers are maimed, mocked, and forgotten.

## Who they are

The Lost Colonel belongs to the same ruined martial world as Shafter, the cadet whose cannon turned on him, and the dead who lie 'with crossed white hands, shut eyes and formal feet.' His absence is his defining feature: he is a rank without a man, a title that has outlived whatever it once meant. He matters because he gives a name to the collection's recurring suspicion that military glory is a story told about people who are no longer there to correct it.

## In the story

### [The Lost Colonel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/the-lost-colonel)

A gallant passenger aboard the Henery Jo, known as 'Colonel,' who remains calm during the storm and jokes about the dryness of life, only to die of thirst after falling overboard.

### [Uncoloneled](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/uncoloneled)

Implied reference to Colonel Mark McDonald, who resigns and aspires to join the G.A.R.

### [Ye Fyghtynge Seventh](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/ye-fyghtynge-seventh)

The colonel of the Seventh is being drubbed and cursed by the enemy.

## Links

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