Showing posts with label civil war film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil war film. Show all posts
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Friday, April 17, 2026
📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘: The Horse Soldiers by Harold Sinclair
This novel is a fictionalized account of one of the most daring cavalry raids of all time. Set during the American Civil War, it vividly brings to life `Grierson's Raid', - the seventeen-day raid by a Union brigade through the heart of Confederate Mississippi. Conscious of the huge odds against them; exhausted, hungry and with a deepening sense of impending doom hanging over them as the enemy gathered forces on all sides, the Union soldiers rode south. Despite this, however, the raid was a triumph and dealt a staggering blow to the enemy. Harold Sinclair's novel brings vividly to life the human drama of this extraordinary episode and conveys superbly the tragedy of a civil war and a nation tearing itself apart.
A Union cavalry officer leads his men on a vital mission behind Confederate lines.
Release Date: June 12, 1959
Release Time: 120 minutes
Director: John Ford
Cast:
John Wayne as Colonel John Marlowe
William Holden as Major Henry 'Hank' Kendall
Constance Towers as Miss Hannah Hunter of Greenbriar
Althea Gibson as Lukey
Judson Pratt as Sergeant Major Kirby
Ken Curtis as Cpl. Wilkie
Willis Bouchey as Col. Phil Secord
Bing Russell as Dunker
O.Z. Whitehead as Otis 'Hoppy' Hopkins
Hank Worden as Deacon Clump
Chuck Hayward as Union captain
Denver Pyle as Jackie Jo (rebel deserter)
Strother Martin as Virgil (rebel deserter)
Basil Ruysdael as the Reverend (Jefferson Military Academy)
Carleton Young as Col. Jonathan Miles, CSA
William Leslie as Maj. Richard Gray
William Henry as Confederate lieutenant
Walter Reed as Union officer
Anna Lee as Mrs. Buford
William Forrest as Gen. Steve Hurlburt
Ron Hagerthy as Bugler
Russell Simpson as Acting Sheriff Henry Goodbody
Hoot Gibson as Sgt. Brown
Jack Pennick as Sgt. Maj.Mitch Mitchell (uncredited)
Harold Sinclair
Harold Sinclair was born on May 8, 1907 in Chicago, Illinois. When he was about 8 years old he was sent, along with his sister, to stay with an aunt and uncle in Bloomington, Illinois. As a teenager he worked for the Western Union telegraph company. He dropped out of school, moved to Florida and later returned to Chicago and finally back home to Bloomington. He played in Jazz Clubs and followed a Bohemian lifestyle.
While working for a hardware store he wrote his first book, The Journey Home (1936). The book impressed an editor at Doubleday who offered Sinclair a four book contract.
His next three books, The American Years (1938), The Years of Growth (1940) and the Years of Illusion (1941) chronicle the history of the imaginary town of Everton, Illinois, from the 1830s to the 1920s. The history and characters in the trilogy were based on the history of the City of Bloomington.
In 1940 he publish, Westward the Tide, an account of the Illinois campaign of George Rogers Clark during the Revolutionary War.
More books followed; The Port of New Orleans (1942), Music of Dixie (1952), and a book commissioned by the Bloomington newspaper, The Daily Pantagraph telling the history of the newspaper, Daily Pantagraph 1846-1946 (1976). He also published several short stories, articles and book reviews.
The Horse Soldiers (1956) was a fictionalized account of Illinois Colonel Benjamin Grierson’s daring raid through Mississippi during the Civil War. This book became a bestseller and is best known as the inspiration of the John Ford/John Wayne movie The Horses Soldiers (1959).
His final novel, The Cavalryman (1958), was a sequel to Horse Soldiers. It was not well received by critics or readers. The book was optioned for a possible television series. That project did not come to fruition.
Sinclair died on May 24, 1966.
Cast:
John Wayne as Colonel John Marlowe
William Holden as Major Henry 'Hank' Kendall
Constance Towers as Miss Hannah Hunter of Greenbriar
Althea Gibson as Lukey
Judson Pratt as Sergeant Major Kirby
Ken Curtis as Cpl. Wilkie
Willis Bouchey as Col. Phil Secord
Bing Russell as Dunker
O.Z. Whitehead as Otis 'Hoppy' Hopkins
Hank Worden as Deacon Clump
Chuck Hayward as Union captain
Denver Pyle as Jackie Jo (rebel deserter)
Strother Martin as Virgil (rebel deserter)
Basil Ruysdael as the Reverend (Jefferson Military Academy)
Carleton Young as Col. Jonathan Miles, CSA
William Leslie as Maj. Richard Gray
William Henry as Confederate lieutenant
Walter Reed as Union officer
Anna Lee as Mrs. Buford
William Forrest as Gen. Steve Hurlburt
Ron Hagerthy as Bugler
Russell Simpson as Acting Sheriff Henry Goodbody
Hoot Gibson as Sgt. Brown
Jack Pennick as Sgt. Maj.Mitch Mitchell (uncredited)
Harold Sinclair was born on May 8, 1907 in Chicago, Illinois. When he was about 8 years old he was sent, along with his sister, to stay with an aunt and uncle in Bloomington, Illinois. As a teenager he worked for the Western Union telegraph company. He dropped out of school, moved to Florida and later returned to Chicago and finally back home to Bloomington. He played in Jazz Clubs and followed a Bohemian lifestyle.
While working for a hardware store he wrote his first book, The Journey Home (1936). The book impressed an editor at Doubleday who offered Sinclair a four book contract.
His next three books, The American Years (1938), The Years of Growth (1940) and the Years of Illusion (1941) chronicle the history of the imaginary town of Everton, Illinois, from the 1830s to the 1920s. The history and characters in the trilogy were based on the history of the City of Bloomington.
In 1940 he publish, Westward the Tide, an account of the Illinois campaign of George Rogers Clark during the Revolutionary War.
More books followed; The Port of New Orleans (1942), Music of Dixie (1952), and a book commissioned by the Bloomington newspaper, The Daily Pantagraph telling the history of the newspaper, Daily Pantagraph 1846-1946 (1976). He also published several short stories, articles and book reviews.
The Horse Soldiers (1956) was a fictionalized account of Illinois Colonel Benjamin Grierson’s daring raid through Mississippi during the Civil War. This book became a bestseller and is best known as the inspiration of the John Ford/John Wayne movie The Horses Soldiers (1959).
His final novel, The Cavalryman (1958), was a sequel to Horse Soldiers. It was not well received by critics or readers. The book was optioned for a possible television series. That project did not come to fruition.
Sinclair died on May 24, 1966.
👀Your best bet might be your local library👀
Film
Friday, April 11, 2025
📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Meg is the eldest and on the brink of love. Then there’s tomboy Jo who longs to be a writer. Sweet-natured Beth always puts others first, and finally there’s Amy, the youngest and most precocious. Together they are the March sisters. Even though money is short, times are tough and their father is away at war, their infectious sense of fun sweeps everyone up in their adventures — including Laurie, the boy next door. And through sisterly squabbles, their happy times and sad ones too, the sisters discover that growing up is sometimes very hard to do.
Based on Louisa May Alcott’s childhood, this lively portrait of nineteenth-century family life possesses a lasting vitality that has endeared it to generations of readers.
A wonderful story... As a child, I strongly identified with Jo because she is a writer. —Jacqueline Wilson
The American female myth. —Madelon Bedell
It is an essential American novel, perhaps the essential American novel for girls… Girls come to it on their own. —Jane Smiley
In “Little Women”, Alcott anticipated realism by twenty or thirty years. —G. K. Chesterton
Chapter 1
NO
Playing Pilgrims
"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
"It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.
"I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff.
"We've got Father and Mother and each other," said Beth contentedly from her corner.
The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, "We haven't got Father, and shall not have him for a long time." She didn't say "perhaps never," but each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was.
Nobody spoke for a minute; then Meg said in an altered tone, "You know the reason Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas was because it is going to be a hard winter for everyone; and she thinks we ought not to spend money for pleasure, when our men are suffering so in the army. We can't do much, but we can make our little sacrifices, and ought to do it gladly. But I am afraid I don't." And Meg shook her head, as she thought regretfully of all the pretty things she wanted.
"But I don't think the little we should spend would do any good. We've each got a dollar, and the army wouldn't be much helped by our giving that. I agree not to expect anything from Mother or you, but I do want to buy Undine and Sintram for myself. I've wanted it so long," said Jo, who was a bookworm.
"I planned to spend mine in new music," said Beth, with a little sigh, which no one heard but the hearth brush and kettle holder.
"I shall get a nice box of Faber's drawing pencils. I really need them," said Amy decidedly.
"Mother didn't say anything about our money, and she won't wish us to give up everything. Let's each buy what we want, and have a little fun. I'm sure we work hard enough to earn it," cried Jo, examining the heels of her shoes in a gentlemanly manner.
"I know I do-teaching those tiresome children nearly all day, when I'm longing to enjoy myself at home," began Meg, in the complaining tone again.
"You don't have half such a hard time as I do," said Jo. "How would you like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps you trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you're ready to fly out of the window or cry?"
"It's naughty to fret, but I do think washing dishes and keeping things tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me cross, and my hands get so stiff, I can't practice well at all." And Beth looked at her rough hands with a sigh that any one could hear that time.
"I don't believe any of you suffer as I do," cried Amy, "for you don't have to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don't know your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your father if he isn't rich, and insult you when your nose isn't nice."
"If you mean libel, I'd say so, and not talk about labels, as if Papa was a pickle bottle," advised Jo, laughing.
"I know what I mean, and you needn't be statirical about it. It's proper to use good words, and improve your vocabilary," returned Amy, with dignity.
"Don't peck at one another, children. Don't you wish we had the money Papa lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! how happy and good we'd be, if we had no worries!" said Meg, who could remember better times.
"You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier than the King children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in spite of their money."
"So I did, Beth. Well, I think we are; for, though we do have to work, we make fun for ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say."
"Jo does use such slang words!" observed Amy, with a reproving look at the long figure stretched on the rug. Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle.
"Don't, Jo, it's so boyish!"
"That's why I do it."
"I detest rude, unladylike girls!"
"I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!"
" 'Birds in their little nests agree,' " sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the "pecking" ended for that time.
"Really, girls, you are both to blame," said Meg, beginning to lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion. "You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks, and to behave better, Josephine. It didn't matter so much when you were a little girl; but now you are so tall, and turn up your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady."
"I'm not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty," cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut mane. "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China aster! It's bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boys' games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy; and it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa, and I can only stay at home and knit, like a poky old woman!" And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets, and her ball bounded across the room.
"Poor Jo! It's too bad, but it can't be helped. So you must try to be contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls," said Beth, stroking the rough head at her knee with a hand that all the dishwashing and dusting in the world could not make ungentle in its touch.
"As for you, Amy," continued Meg, "you are altogether too particular and prim. Your airs are funny now, but you'll grow up an affected little goose, if you don't take care. I like your nice manners and refined ways of speaking, when you don't try to be elegant. But your absurd words are as bad as Jo's slang."
"If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what am I, please?" asked Beth, ready to share the lecture.
"You're a dear, and nothing else," answered Meg warmly; and no one contradicted her, for the "Mouse" was the pet of the family.
As young readers like to know "how people look," we will take this moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable old room, though the carpet was faded and the furniture very plain; for a good picture or two hung on the walls, books filled the recesses, chrysanthemums and Christmas roses bloomed in the windows, and a pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded it.
Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft, brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn't like it. Elizabeth-or Beth, as everyone called her-was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression which was seldom disturbed. Her father called her "Little Tranquillity," and the name suited her excellently, for she seemed to live in a happy world of her own, only venturing out to meet the few whom she trusted and loved. Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person-in her own opinion at least. A regular snow maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow hair curling on her shoulders, pale and slender, and always carrying herself like a young lady mindful of her manners. What the characters of the four sisters were we will leave to be found out.
The clock struck six and, having swept up the hearth, Beth put a pair of slippers down to warm. Somehow the sight of the old shoes had a good effect upon the girls, for Mother was coming, and everyone brightened to welcome her. Meg stopped lecturing, and lighted the lamp, Amy got out of the easy chair without being asked, and Jo forgot how tired she was as she sat up to hold the slippers nearer to the blaze.
"They are quite worn out. Marmee must have a new pair."
"I thought I'd get her some with my dollar," said Beth.
"No, I shall!" cried Amy.
"I'm the oldest," began Meg, but Jo cut in with a decided-
"I'm the man of the family now Papa is away, and I shall provide the slippers, for he told me to take special care of Mother while he was gone."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Beth, "let's each get her something for Christmas, and not get anything for ourselves."
"That's like you, dear! What will we get?" exclaimed Jo.
Everyone thought soberly for a minute, then Meg announced, as if the idea was suggested by the sight of her own pretty hands, "I shall give her a nice pair of gloves."
"Army shoes, best to be had," cried Jo.
"Some handkerchiefs, all hemmed," said Beth.
"I'll get a little bottle of cologne. She likes it, and it won't cost much, so I'll have some left to buy my pencils," added Amy.
"How will we give the things?" asked Meg.
"Put them on the table, and bring her in and see her open the bundles. Don't you remember how we used to do on our birthdays?" answered Jo.
"I used to be so frightened when it was my turn to sit in the big chair with the crown on, and see you all come marching round to give the presents, with a kiss. I liked the things and the kisses, but it was dreadful to have you sit looking at me while I opened the bundles," said Beth, who was toasting her face and the bread for tea at the same time.
"Let Marmee think we are getting things for ourselves, and then surprise her. We must go shopping tomorrow afternoon, Meg. There is so much to do about the play for Christmas night," said Jo, marching up and down, with her hands behind her back and her nose in the air.
"I don't mean to act any more after this time. I'm getting too old for such things," observed Meg, who was as much a child as ever about "dressing-up" frolics.
"You won't stop, I know, as long as you can trail round in a white gown with your hair down, and wear gold-paper jewelry. You are the best actress we've got, and there'll be an end of everything if you quit the boards," said Jo. "We ought to rehearse tonight. Come here, Amy, and do the fainting scene, for you are as stiff as a poker in that."
"I can't help it; I never saw anyone faint, and I don't choose to make myself all black and blue, tumbling flat as you do. If I can go down easily, I'll drop; if I can't, I shall fall into a chair and be graceful. I don't care if Hugo does come at me with a pistol," returned Amy, who was not gifted with dramatic power, but was chosen because she was small enough to be borne out shrieking by the villain of the piece.
"Do it this way: clasp your hands so, and stagger across the room, crying frantically, 'Roderigo! save me! save me!' " and away went Jo, with a melodramatic scream which was truly thrilling.
Amy followed, but she poked her hands out stiffly before her, and jerked herself along as if she went by machinery, and her "Ow!" was more suggestive of pins being run into her than of fear and anguish. Jo gave a despairing groan, and Meg laughed outright, while Beth let her bread burn as she watched the fun with interest.
"It's no use! Do the best you can when the time comes, and if the audience laughs, don't blame me. Come on, Meg."
Then things went smoothly, for Don Pedro defied the world in a speech of two pages without a single break; Hagar, the witch, chanted an awful incantation over her kettleful of simmering toads, with weird effect; Roderigo rent his chains asunder manfully, and Hugo died in agonies of remorse and arsenic, with a wild "Ha! ha!"
"It's the best we've had yet," said Meg, as the dead villain sat up and rubbed his elbows.
"I don't see how you can write and act such splendid things, Jo. You're a regular Shakespeare!" exclaimed Beth, who firmly believed that her sisters were gifted with wonderful genius in all things.
"Not quite," replied Jo modestly. "I do think The Witch's Curse, an Operatic Tragedy is rather a nice thing, but I'd like to try Macbeth, if we only had a trapdoor for Banquo. I always wanted to do the killing part. 'Is that a dagger that I see before me?' " muttered Jo, rolling her eyes and clutching at the air, as she had seen a famous tragedian do.
"No, it's the toasting fork, with Mother's shoe on it instead of the bread. Beth's stage-struck!" cried Meg, and the rehearsal ended in a general burst of laughter.
"Glad to find you so merry, my girls," said a cheery voice at the door, and actors and audience turned to welcome a tall, motherly lady with a "can-I-help-you" look about her which was truly delightful. She was not elegantly dressed, but a noble-looking woman, and the girls thought the gray cloak and unfashionable bonnet covered the most splendid mother in the world.
"Well, dearies, how have you got on today? There was so much to do, getting the boxes ready to go tomorrow, that I didn't come home to dinner. Has anyone called, Beth? How is your cold, Meg? Jo, you look tired to death. Come and kiss me, baby."
Release Date: March 10, 1949
Release Time: 121 minutes
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast:
June Allyson as Josephine "Jo" March
Peter Lawford as Theodore "Laurie" Laurence
Margaret O'Brien as Elizabeth "Beth" March
Elizabeth Taylor as Amy March
Janet Leigh as Margaret "Meg" March
Rossano Brazzi as Professor Friedrich Bhaer
Mary Astor as Margaret "Marmee" March
Lucile Watson as Aunt Josephine March
Sir C. Aubrey Smith as James Laurence
Elizabeth Patterson as Hannah Mullet
Leon Ames as Robert March
Harry Davenport as Dr. Barnes
Richard Stapley as John Brooke
Connie Gilchrist as Mrs. Kirke
Ellen Corby as Sophie
Uncredited
Harlan Briggs as Old Crony at Grace's store
Frank Darien as Crony at Grace's store
Lisa Golm as Mrs. Hummel
Olin Howland as Mr. Davis
Isabel Randolph as Mrs. Gardiner
Will Wright as Mr. Grace
Awards:
22nd Academy Awards - March 23, 1950
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration–Color - Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse, Edwin B. Willis and Jack D. Moore - Won
Best Cinematography–Color - Robert H. Planck and Charles Schoenbaum - Nominated
1933 / 1949
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was both an abolitionist and a feminist. She is best known for Little Women (1868), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood years with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts. Alcott, unlike Jo, never married: "... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man." She was an advocate of women's suffrage and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts.
B&N / iTUNES / iTUNES AUDIO
Film
Friday, July 7, 2023
🎇📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation(Independence Day Edition)🎥📘🎇: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Civil War Trilogy #2
“My favorite historical novel . . . a superb re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg, but its real importance is its insight into what the war was about, and what it meant.”—James M. McPherson
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty were also the casualties of war. Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—the dramatic story of the battleground for America’s destiny.
Praise for The Killer Angels
“Remarkable . . . a book that changed my life . . . I had never visited Gettysburg, knew almost nothing about that battle before I read the book, but here it all came alive.”—Ken Burns
“Shaara carries [the reader] swiftly and dramatically to a climax as exciting as if it were being heard for the first time.”—The Seattle Times
“Utterly absorbing.”—Forbes
1. THE SPY
He rode into the dark of the woods and dismounted. He crawled upward on his belly over cool rocks out into the sunlight, and suddenly he was in the open and he could see for miles, and there was the whole vast army below him, filling the valley like a smoking river. It came out of a blue rainstorm in the east and overflowed the narrow valley road, coiling along a stream, narrowing and choking at a white bridge, fading out into the yellowish dust of June but still visible on the farther road beyond the blue hills, spiked with flags and guidons like a great chopped bristly snake, the snake ending headless in a blue wall of summer rain.
The spy tucked himself behind a boulder and began counting flags. Must be twenty thousand men, visible all at once. Two whole Union Corps. He could make out the familiar black hats of the Iron Brigade, troops belonging to John Reynold’s First Corps. He looked at his watch, noted the time. They were coming very fast. The Army of the Potomac had never moved this fast. The day was murderously hot and there was no wind and the dust hung above the army like a yellow veil. He thought: there’ll be some of them die of the heat today. But they are coming faster than they ever came before.
He slipped back down into the cool dark and rode slowly downhill toward the silent empty country to the north. With luck he could make the Southern line before nightfall. After nightfall it would be dangerous. But he must not seem to hurry. The horse was already tired. And yet there was the pressure of that great blue army behind him, building like water behind a cracking dam. He rode out into the open, into the land between the armies.
There were fat Dutch barns, prim German orchards. But there were no cattle in the fields and no horses, and houses everywhere were empty and dark. He was alone in the heat and the silence, and then it began to rain and he rode head down into monstrous lightning. All his life he had been afraid of lightning but he kept riding. He did not know where the Southern headquarters was but he knew it had to be somewhere near Chambersburg. He had smelled out the shape of Lee’s army in all the rumors and bar talk and newspapers and hysteria he had drifted through all over eastern Pennsylvania, and on that day he was perhaps the only man alive who knew the positions of both armies. He carried the knowledge with a hot and lovely pride. Lee would be near Chambersburg, and wherever Lee was Longstreet would not be far away. So finding the headquarters was not the problem. The problem was riding through a picket line in the dark.
The rain grew worse. He could not even move in under a tree because of the lightning. He had to take care not to get lost. He rode quoting Shakespeare from memory, thinking of the picket line ahead somewhere in the dark. The sky opened and poured down on him and he rode on: It will be rain tonight: Let it come down. That was a speech of murderers. He had been an actor once. He had no stature and a small voice and there were no big parts for him until the war came, and now he was the only one who knew how good he was. If only they could see him work, old cold Longstreet and the rest. But everyone hated spies. I come a single spy. Wet single spy. But they come in whole battalions. The rain began to ease off and he spurred the horse to a trot. My kingdom for a horse. Jolly good line. He went on, reciting Henry the Fifth aloud: “Once more into the breech . . .”
Late that afternoon he came to a crossroad and the sign of much cavalry having passed this way a few hours ago. His own way led north to Chambersburg, but he knew that Longstreet would have to know who these people were so close to his line. He debated a moment at the crossroads, knowing there was no time. A delay would cost him daylight. Yet he was a man of pride and the tracks drew him. Perhaps it was only Jeb Stuart. The spy thought hopefully, wistfully: If it’s Stuart I can ask for an armed escort all the way home. He turned and followed the tracks. After a while he saw a farmhouse and a man standing out in a field, in a peach orchard, and he spurred that way. The man was small and bald with huge round arms and spoke very bad English. The spy went into his act: a simple-minded farmer seeking a runaway wife, terrified of soldiers. The bald man regarded him sweatily, disgustedly, told him the soldiers just gone by were “plu” soldiers, Yankees. The spy asked: What town lies yonder? and the farmer told him Gettysburg, but the name meant nothing. The spy turned and spurred back to the crossroads. Yankee cavalry meant John Buford’s column. Moving lickety-split. Where was Stuart? No escort now. He rode back again toward the blue hills. But the horse could not be pushed. He had to dismount and walk.
That was the last sign of Yankees. He was moving up across South Mountain; he was almost home. Beyond South Mountain was Lee and, of course, Longstreet. A strange friendship: grim and gambling Longstreet, formal and pious old Bobby Lee. The spy wondered at it, and then the rain began again, bringing more lightning but at least some cooler air, and he tucked himself in under his hat and went back to Hamlet. Old Jackson was dead. Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest . . .
He rode into darkness. No longer any need to hurry. He left the roadway at last and moved out in to a field away from the lightning and the trees and sat in the rain to eat a lonely supper, trying to make up his mind whether it was worth the risk of going on. He was very close; he could begin to feel them up ahead. There was no way of knowing when or where, but suddenly they would be there in the road, stepping phantomlike out of the trees wearing those sick eerie smiles, and other men with guns would suddenly appear all around him, prodding him in the back with hard steel barrels, as you prod an animal, and he would have to be lucky, because few men rode out at night on good and honest business, not now, this night, in this invaded country.
He rode slowly up the road, not really thinking, just moving, reluctant to stop. He was weary. Fragments of Hamlet flickered in his brain: If it be not now, yet it will come. Ripeness is all. Now there’s a good part. A town ahead. A few lights. And then he struck the picket line.
There was a presence in the road, a liquid Southern voice. He saw them outlined in lightning, black ragged figures rising around him. A sudden lantern poured yellow light. He saw one bleak hawkish grinning face; hurriedly he mentioned Longstreet’s name. With some you postured and with some you groveled and with some you were imperious. But you could do that only by daylight, when you could see the faces and gauge the reaction. And now he was too tired and cold. He sat and shuddered: an insignificant man on a pale and muddy horse. He turned out to be lucky. There was a patient sergeant with a long gray beard who put him under guard and sent him along up the dark road to Longstreet’s headquarters.
He was not safe even now, but he could begin to relax. He rode up the long road between picket fires, and he could hear them singing in the rain, chasing each other in the dark of the trees. A fat and happy army, roasting meat and fresh bread, telling stories in the dark. He began to fall asleep on the horse; he was home. But they did not like to see him sleep, and one of them woke him up to remind him, cheerily, that if there was no one up there who knew him, why, then, unfortunately, they’d have to hang him, and the soldier said it just to see the look on his face, and the spy shivered, wondering, Why do there have to be men like that, men who enjoy another man’s dying?
Longstreet was not asleep. He lay on the cot watching the lightning flare in the door of the tent. It was very quiet in the grove and there was the sound of the raindrops continuing to fall from the trees although the rain had ended. When Sorrel touched him on the arm he was glad of it; he was thinking of his dead children.
“Sir? You asked to be awakened if Harrison came back.”
“Yes.” Longstreet got up quickly and put on the old blue robe and the carpet slippers. He was a very big man and he was full-bearded and wild-haired. He thought of the last time he’d seen the spy, back in Virginia, tiny man with a face like a weasel: “And where will your headquarters be, General, up there in Pennsylvania? ’Tis a big state indeed.” Him standing there with cold gold clutched in a dirty hand. And Longstreet had said icily, cheerily, “It will be where it will be. If you cannot find the headquarters of this whole army you cannot be much of a spy.” And the spy had said stiffly, “Scout, sir. I am a scout. And I am a patriot, sir.” Longstreet had grinned. We are all patriots. He stepped out into the light. He did not know what to expect. He had not really expected the spy to come back at all.
The little man was there: a soggy spectacle on a pale and spattered horse. He sat grinning wanly from under the floppy brim of a soaked and dripping hat. Lightning flared behind him; he touched his cap.
“Your servant, General. May I come down?”
Longstreet nodded. The guard backed off. Longstreet told Sorrel to get some coffee. The spy slithered down from the horse and stood grinning foolishly, shivering, mouth slack with fatigue.
“Well, sir”—the spy chuckled, teeth chattering—“you see, I was able to find you after all.”
Longstreet sat at the camp table on a wet seat, extracted a cigar, lighted it. The spy sat floppily, mouth still open, breathing deeply.
“It has been a long day. I’ve ridden hard all this day.”
“What have you got?”
“I came through the pickets at night, you know. That can be very touchy.”
Longstreet nodded. He watched, he waited. Sorrel came with steaming coffee; the cup burned Longstreet’s fingers. Sorrel sat, gazing curiously, distastefully at the spy.
The spy guzzled, then sniffed Longstreet’s fragrant smoke. Wistfully: “I say, General, I don’t suppose you’ve got another of those? Good Southern tobacco?”
“Directly,” Longstreet said. “What have you got?”
“I’ve got the position of the Union Army.”
Longstreet nodded, showing nothing. He had not known the Union Army was on the move, was within two hundred miles, was even this side of the Potomac, but he nodded and said nothing. The spy asked for a map and began pointing out the positions of the corps.
“They’re coming in seven corps. I figure at least eighty thousand men, possibly as much as a hundred thousand. When they’re all together they’ll outnumber you, but they’re not as strong as they were; the two-year enlistments are running out. The First Corps is here. The Eleventh is right behind it. John Reynolds is in command of the lead elements. I saw him at Taneytown this morning.”
“Reynolds,” Longstreet said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You saw him yourself?”
The spy grinned, nodded, rubbed his nose, chuckled. “So close I could touch him. It was Reynolds all right.”
“This morning. At Taneytown.”
“Exactly. You didn’t know any of that, now did you, General?” The spy bobbed his head with delight. “You didn’t even know they was on the move, did ye? I thought not. You wouldn’t be spread out so thin if you knowed they was comin’.”
Longstreet looked at Sorrel. The aide shrugged silently. If this was true, there would have been some word. Longstreet’s mind moved over it slowly. He said: “How did you know we were spread out?”
“I smelled it out.” The spy grinned, foxlike, toothy. “Listen, General, I’m good at this business.”
“Tell me what you know of our position.”
“Well, now I can’t be too exact on this, ’cause I aint scouted you myself, but I gather that you’re spread from York up to Harrisburg and then back to Chambersburg, with the main body around Chambersburg and General Lee just ’round the bend.”
It was exact. Longstreet thought: if this one knows it, they will know it. He said slowly, “We’ve had no word of Union movement.”
The spy bobbed with joy. “I knew it. Thass why I hurried. Came through that picket line in the dark and all. I don’t know if you realize, General—”
Sorrel said coldly, “Sir, don’t you think, if this man’s story was true, that we would have heard something?”
Release Date: October 8, 1993
Release Time: 254 minutes
271 minutes (director's cut)
Release Time: 254 minutes
271 minutes (director's cut)
Director: Ronald F. Maxwell
Cast:
Union
Jeff Daniels as Colonel Joshua Chamberlain
Sam Elliott as Brigadier General John Buford
C. Thomas Howell as Lieutenant Thomas Chamberlain
Kevin Conway as Sergeant Buster Kilrain
Brian Mallon as Major General Winfield Scott Hancock
Buck Taylor as Colonel William Gamble
John Diehl as Private Joseph Bucklin
Joshua D. Maurer as Colonel James Clay Rice
John Rothman as Major General John F. Reynolds
Richard Anderson as Major General George Meade
Billy Campbell as Lieutenant Andrew Lewis Pitzer
David Carpenter as Colonel Thomas C. Devin
Maxwell Caulfield as Colonel Strong Vincent
Donal Logue as Captain Ellis Spear
Dwier Brown as Captain Brewer
Herb Mitchell as Sergeant Andrew J. Tozier
Emile O. Schmidt as Brigadier General John Gibbon
Confederate
Tom Berenger as Lieutenant General James Longstreet
Martin Sheen as General Robert E. Lee
Stephen Lang as Major General George Pickett
Richard Jordan as Brigadier General Lewis Armistead
Andrew Prine as Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett
Cooper Huckabee as Henry Thomas Harrison
Patrick Gorman as Major General John Bell Hood
Bo Brinkman as Major Walter H. Taylor
James Lancaster as Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Fremantle
W. Morgan Sheppard as Major General Isaac R. Trimble
Kieran Mulroney as Major Moxley Sorrel
James Patrick Stuart as Colonel Edward Porter Alexander
Tim Ruddy as Major Charles Marshall
Royce D. Applegate as Brigadier General James L. Kemper
Ivan Kane as Captain T. J. Goree
Warren Burton as Major General Henry Heth
MacIntyre Dixon as Major General Jubal Early
Joseph Fuqua as Major General J. E. B. Stuart
Tim Scott as Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell
George Lazenby as Brigadier General J. Johnston Pettigrew
Graham Winton as Major General Robert E. Rodes
Michael Shaara was born in Jersey City in 1929 and graduated from Rutgers University in 1951. His early science fiction short stories were published in Galaxy magazine in 1952. He later began writing other works of fiction and published more than seventy short stories in many magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, and Redbook. His first novel, The Broken Place, was published in 1968. But it was a simple family vacation to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1966 that gave him the inspiration for his greatest achievement, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels, published in 1974. Michael Shaara went on to write two more novels, The Noah Conspiracy and For Love of the Game, which was published posthumously after his death in 1988.
The Killer Angels #2
KOBO / iTUNES / iTUNES AUDIO
GOOGLE PLAY / AUDIBLE / CHIRP / WIKI
Series
KOBO / iTUNES / iTUNES AUDIO
GOOGLE PLAY / AUDIBLE / CHIRP
Film
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)