Answer: Ambrose Pierce was a soldier, and all his stories of war convey the impression of being something lived, collected from the experiences that happened to him or to those he met. As a soldier, he was not a patriot. He considered the members of the militia as murderers licensed to perform atrocities, and he undoubtedly included himself in that class. And yet, the cynical who reviewed the cruelties of war never ceased to show his contempt for it and, thus, reaffirm his own humanity.
Jack London was working for the American weekly Collier´s, the national weekly as a war correspondent during the seizure and occupation of the port of Veracruz; those experiences gave them another "not so clean" vision of war.