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The Horse Soldiers
The Horse Soldiers is a 1959 American adventure war film set during the American Civil War directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, William Holden, and Constance Towers. The screenplay by John Lee Mahin and Martin Rackin was loosely based on the Harold Sinclair (1907-1966) 1956 novel of historical fiction of the same name, a fictionalized version of the famous Grierson's Raid by federal cavalry in April–May 1863 riding southward through Mississippi and around the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg during the Vicksburg campaign to split the southern Confederacy by Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant.
A Union cavalry brigade led by Colonel John Marlowe — a railroad construction engineer in civilian life — is sent on a raid behind Confederate Army lines to destroy railroad track and the Confederate supply depot for Vicksburg at Newton Station. Newly assigned Major Henry Kendall, a regimental surgeon who is torn between duty and the horror of war, is constantly at odds with Marlowe.
While the raiders rest overnight at Greenbriar Plantation, Miss Hannah Hunter, the plantation's mistress, acts as a gracious hostess to the unit's officers, hosting a dinner for them and exaggerating her "Southern manners and courtesies" to hide her dismay and disgust towards the invading Yankees. Her enslaved maid, Lukey, and she eavesdrop on a staff meeting as Colonel Marlowe discusses his battle strategy to avoid tangling with Confederate States Army troops as he drives south through Mississippi south to the Union-occupied Louisiana state capital of Baton Rouge. To protect the secrecy of the mission, Marlowe is forced to take the two women along with him.
Initially hostile to her Yankee captors, Miss Hunter gradually comes to respect Colonel Marlowe and eventually falls in love with him. In addition to the surgeon Major Kendall and Miss Hunter, Marlowe also must contend with Colonel Phil Secord, a politically ambitious officer commanding the other cavalry regiment. Secord continually questions and second-guesses Marlowe's orders and command decisions.
Several battles ensue, including the capture of the vital supply depot at Newton Station, plus a later skirmish during which Lukey is killed by a rebel sniper; and a surprise dawn attack and skirmish with cadets from a local Southern military academy (based on an actual incident in May 1864's Battle of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley campaigns of western Virginia, when a battalion of youngsters from the Corps of Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute was thrown into battle; see also Battle of Natural Bridge).
After destroying the crucial enemy supplies and equipment at Newton's Station, cutting the railway line between Vicksburg and the Mississippi state capital of Jackson further east, and now with Confederate Army cavalry forces in hot pursuit, the Union Army brigade under Colonels Marlowe and Secord reaches a bridge that must be stormed and taken to reach the federal lines at Baton Rouge. After taking the bridge, Marlowe's men rig it with barrels of black powder. Marlowe bids Hannah farewell, professing that he is in love with her. Dr. Kendall chooses to remain behind with some badly wounded men in a log cabin by the bridge rigged up as a temporary hospital, knowing he will be captured with them, rather than leave them without medical attention until Confederate medical personnel arrive with the pursuing Southerners.
Marlowe, though wounded in the leg, lights the fuse to the explosives with a cigar. He is the last of his men to gallop in a rush across the bridge before it explodes, halting the Confederate chase. Their mission accomplished, his brigade and he continue toward Baton Rouge.
The film was loosely based on Harold Sinclair's 1956 novel of the same name, which in turn was based on the historic 17-day Grierson's Raid and Battle of Newton's Station in Mississippi during the Civil War.
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The Horse Soldiers
The Horse Soldiers is a 1959 American adventure war film set during the American Civil War directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, William Holden, and Constance Towers. The screenplay by John Lee Mahin and Martin Rackin was loosely based on the Harold Sinclair (1907-1966) 1956 novel of historical fiction of the same name, a fictionalized version of the famous Grierson's Raid by federal cavalry in April–May 1863 riding southward through Mississippi and around the Mississippi River fortress of Vicksburg during the Vicksburg campaign to split the southern Confederacy by Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant.
A Union cavalry brigade led by Colonel John Marlowe — a railroad construction engineer in civilian life — is sent on a raid behind Confederate Army lines to destroy railroad track and the Confederate supply depot for Vicksburg at Newton Station. Newly assigned Major Henry Kendall, a regimental surgeon who is torn between duty and the horror of war, is constantly at odds with Marlowe.
While the raiders rest overnight at Greenbriar Plantation, Miss Hannah Hunter, the plantation's mistress, acts as a gracious hostess to the unit's officers, hosting a dinner for them and exaggerating her "Southern manners and courtesies" to hide her dismay and disgust towards the invading Yankees. Her enslaved maid, Lukey, and she eavesdrop on a staff meeting as Colonel Marlowe discusses his battle strategy to avoid tangling with Confederate States Army troops as he drives south through Mississippi south to the Union-occupied Louisiana state capital of Baton Rouge. To protect the secrecy of the mission, Marlowe is forced to take the two women along with him.
Initially hostile to her Yankee captors, Miss Hunter gradually comes to respect Colonel Marlowe and eventually falls in love with him. In addition to the surgeon Major Kendall and Miss Hunter, Marlowe also must contend with Colonel Phil Secord, a politically ambitious officer commanding the other cavalry regiment. Secord continually questions and second-guesses Marlowe's orders and command decisions.
Several battles ensue, including the capture of the vital supply depot at Newton Station, plus a later skirmish during which Lukey is killed by a rebel sniper; and a surprise dawn attack and skirmish with cadets from a local Southern military academy (based on an actual incident in May 1864's Battle of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley campaigns of western Virginia, when a battalion of youngsters from the Corps of Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute was thrown into battle; see also Battle of Natural Bridge).
After destroying the crucial enemy supplies and equipment at Newton's Station, cutting the railway line between Vicksburg and the Mississippi state capital of Jackson further east, and now with Confederate Army cavalry forces in hot pursuit, the Union Army brigade under Colonels Marlowe and Secord reaches a bridge that must be stormed and taken to reach the federal lines at Baton Rouge. After taking the bridge, Marlowe's men rig it with barrels of black powder. Marlowe bids Hannah farewell, professing that he is in love with her. Dr. Kendall chooses to remain behind with some badly wounded men in a log cabin by the bridge rigged up as a temporary hospital, knowing he will be captured with them, rather than leave them without medical attention until Confederate medical personnel arrive with the pursuing Southerners.
Marlowe, though wounded in the leg, lights the fuse to the explosives with a cigar. He is the last of his men to gallop in a rush across the bridge before it explodes, halting the Confederate chase. Their mission accomplished, his brigade and he continue toward Baton Rouge.
The film was loosely based on Harold Sinclair's 1956 novel of the same name, which in turn was based on the historic 17-day Grierson's Raid and Battle of Newton's Station in Mississippi during the Civil War.