In an occurrence at owl creek bridge why did the stars appear in a different order?

Answer and explanation:

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a short story by author Ambrose Bierce. The main character, Peyton Farquhar, is tricked into trying to burn a bridge that would allow Union soldiers to cross. Farquhar is a Confederacy supporter. He ends up hanged.

However, the author fools readers for a moment, leading us to believe Farquhar escaped when the noose broke and he fell in the river. Farquhar begins a painful journey back home. He feels tired, sore, and famished. When he finds a road that leads to his house, everything tells him there is something ominous about it. It looks like no one has ever set foot there. The trees form walls on both sides, and there isn't a sound to be heard. Even the stars, when he looks up at the sky, look strange:

Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance.

All these signs mean he is dying. Farquhar never escaped. He is merely hallucinating in the brief moments it takes to die from strangulation. The stars appear in a different order as a sign of that: maybe to show what he sees is not real; maybe because he is seeing them from the Afterlife.