Peyton Farquhar is, in many ways, representative of most civilians during a war. He cares deeply about the war effort and vigorously supports his side by doing everything he can to assist. Although he did not join the army (for undisclosed reasons), it is clear that he "was at heart a soldier." For his commitment to his principles, many might applaud Farquhar, even though contemporary readers do not share those principles (as he was a slaveowner and secessionist).

The idea of fundamental human characteristics could play a role in this story in the sense that war makes many of us do things that would not otherwise be or seem acceptable. Farquhar assents to the idea that "all is fair in [...] war," as might many people. When one is fighting for something that one believes to be right, one fights hard and might fight dirty. In war, the ends often seem to justify the means: in order to create peace, we might have to be willing to fight; in order to preserve something important to us, we might have to be willing to damage or deplete it. In the end, Farquhar, a civilian, is hanged for believing this, and so perhaps Bierce points out the flaws in this kind of thinking. Further, his death emphasizes the fact that wars do not only affect the soldiers fighting them, but civilians as well. There are many casualties when we assent to the idea that the goal of war legitimizes whatever terrible means we employ to achieve that goal.