Abstract: This article examines a certain type of US national mentality that stems from the historical frontier development of the continent, as well as the specificity of its representation in the texts of the American writer of the turn of the XIX – XX centuries Ambrose Bierce. The object of this research is the texts of the “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians" by Ambrose Bierce. The subject is the category of cyclic time, binary opposition of “own/alien”, system of characters in the “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians", interpretation of the symbolic images of the texts through the prism of frontier mythology. The scientific novelty consists in examination of the works by Ambrose Bierce not only as a literary tradition, but also in the context of frontier mythology, which determines the specificity of the US national worldview. It is established that Ambrose Bierce refers to a range of patterns characteristic to the frontier myth (opposition of own/alien, image of frontiersman, transformational shift, religious symbolism, and motivation), which allows revealing the national traits of the contemporary to Bierce Americans who have experienced the monumental disturbances of the Civil War, as well as examining the human nature overall, creating a universal image of a man who lost touch with the world and own identity.