What are the internal and external conflicts in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"?

The story is set during the American Civil War, so one external conflict that is present is the conflict that is raging between the Union and the Confederacy.  The war was over many things, but the two main issues were states' rights and slavery.  

Another external conflict is the conflict between Peyton and the Union soldiers that are going to hang him.  Peyton was caught trying to sabotage a bridge, and his punishment is death by hanging.  Peyton's escape could be viewed as an external conflict.  He is struggling to not drown, get shot, etc.  Of course that is all happening in his imagination, so maybe it is an internal conflict too.  

A better choice for internal conflict is the conflict going on inside of Peyton before he gets captured.  The story tells readers that Peyton really wanted to take a more active part in the war, but he was prevented from doing so for some reason.  

Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. 

Now he has been given the chance to earn some distinction for himself, but he must wrestle with the risk.  If he fails, he will die and leave his family without a provider.  

Another internal conflict occurs in the beginning of the story.  Peyton is about to be dropped to his death, but he isn't panicking, nor is he begging for his life.  He could be doing either, but he attempts to maintain a proud southern outward show of bravery.  Even seconds before he dies, he is still thinking of escape.  

"If I could free my hands," he thought, "I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream."

In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," what are the internal and external conflicts?

In part two, the internal conflict is revealed when Bierce elaborates on Peyton Farquhar's inner struggle to participate in the Civil War. Having an aristocratic southern background prevents Farquhar from enlisting in the Confederate Army, which bothers Peyton to the point that he decides to burn down the Owl Creek Bridge as a way to aid the Confederate cause. Ambrose Bierce does not go into detail as to why Farquhar cannot enlist, but he writes,

Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction (4).

Farquhar's insecurities and longing to participate in the fight against the North motivate him to risk his life by destroying the Owl Creek Bridge. Farquhar essentially feels inadequate because he is not a Confederate soldier and, thus, does not have numerous opportunities to fight Union troops.

Another internal conflict involves Peyton's inability to accept his fate. While waiting to die with a noose around his neck, Farquhar fantasizes about escaping. Farquhar imagines a scenario where his noose snaps and he falls into the water below. Farquhar's inability to accept the difficult reality is illustrated by his continual thoughts of escape before he is hanged.

The external conflicts throughout the story concern the belligerents involved in the Civil War and Peyton's struggle against the Union soldiers who are about to hang him. Throughout the story, the Union Army is fighting a war against the Confederacy, which seceded from the Union in 1860. Peyton's conflict begins when he is manipulated by a Union spy to burn down the Owl Creek Bridge. Unfortunately for Peyton, he is arrested and hanged by the Union soldiers stationed at the Owl Creek Bridge.

The external conflict is, I think, a little easier to describe.  Peyton Farquhar is about to be hanged for the crime of attempting to burn down the Owl Creek Bridge, part of an important railroad line, during the Civil War.  Therefore, an external conflict exists between Farquhar, who would prefer to retain his life, and the Union soldiers who hang him.

However, the crux of the story -- and what makes it really interesting -- is the way time strangely slows down while Farquhar awaits his punishment and as he falls into the noose.  His internal conflict isn't a typical kind of conflict; he isn't torn between two things that he wants or doesn't want.  His conflict seems to arise from the fact that he cannot seem to accept his fate; it's as though the conflict exists between reality and his mind.  He is able to imagine that he escapes, swims the creek, travels miles and miles through the woods, and finally arrives at his home, a journey that should take a whole day or even two, all in the brief moment during which he drops from the bridge.  It is as though his senses, in his mind, have become preternaturally keen, but what is actually happening is that he is concocting a sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy of escape.  Unable to cope with his reality, Farquhar creates a conflicting one within his mind, and this makes the final lines of the story -- where the noose snaps his neck -- all the more jarring for the reader.

Whose struggles and feelings are related in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"?

Ambrose Bierce wrote this story using different perspectives. Although the entire story is written in third person, the point of view is limited, allowing Bierce to accomplish his "trick ending." 

At the beginning of Part I, the narration is highly objective, reporting on no feelings of the soldiers or the man being hanged. The last three sentences of the fourth paragraph allow the reader into the mind of Peyton Farquhar, the man being executed, and the remainder of that section continues from his point of view.

In Part II, the narration switches back to an objective description again, reporting the facts of Farquhar's background and the visit from the "gray-clad soldier." No character's feelings are described, but the last sentence of the section reveals a fact that Farquhar did not know, namely that the soldier "was a Federal scout."

Part III changes the perspective again, this time becoming fully Farquhar's perception. The reader knows everything Farquhar sees, feels, and thinks as well as what he does. Although there seem to be descriptions of actions as in Parts I and II, the reader is deceived by this because it turns out that all the action being described has occurred only within the few seconds of the hanging—all in Farquhar's imagination. The last sentence of the story returns to objective narration, describing what Farquhar is no longer able to perceive: The body of the man "swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge."

Peyton Farquhar's struggles and feelings are the only ones the reader is made privy to in this story. Interestingly, Bierce's vacillating points of view lull the reader into believing the story is more objective than it turns out to be.

The narrator is talking about Peyton Farquhar, the main character of the story. The story opens when Farquhar is about to be hanged for trying to blow up a bridge for the Confederates. What is interesting about the narration of the story is that the narrator makes the reader think that Farquhar survives the hanging because the rope broke. It isn't until the end of the story that the reader is told that he did hang. Part III is only in the imagination of Farquhar just before he hangs.

What conflicts are present in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and what types are they?

In this type of story the major conflict is between giant, impersonal forces. They are the North and the South, the Union and the Confederacy. The protagonist is the Union, since they are on the offensive and are invading the South. Peyton Farquhar, like the anonymous Union soldiers, is only a little individual caught up in a gigantic conflict. He is helpless to do anything but wait to be hanged, just as the officers and soldiers are helpless to do anything except obey orders.

The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge.

Looked at in this way, the conflict is largely physical--a military conflict between two armies. It can also be said to be moral, because each side feels it is in the right. And it can be considered emotional for the same reason.

The title of the story suggests that what is happening is just an unimportant incident, or "occurrence." The military forces involved in this region are small. The bridge spans a creek nobody every heard of. It is not even a river but a creek in the middle of nowhere. What happens is of importance only to one man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the few seconds of life he has left while falling from the bridge with a rope around his neck, he fantasizes about escaping and making it back to his home and his beloved wife. But his fate is inescapable, inevitable, and iinconsequential in the greater scheme of things. It is just a tiny incident in a great war that claimed over 600,000 lives.