The Horse Soldiers (1959)

Description

The Horse Soldiers is a 1959 western film, set in the American Civil War, directed by John Ford, starring John Wayne, William Holden and Constance Towers. The film was based on Harold Sinclair's novel of the same name. The team of John Lee Mahin and Martin Rackin both wrote the screenplay and produced the movie. The movie is based on the true story of Grierson's Raid, led by Colonel Benjamin Grierson who, along with 1700 men, set out from northern Mississippi and rode several hundred miles behind enemy lines in April of 1863 to cut the railroad between Newton Station and Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grierson's raid was part of the Union campaign, culminating in the Battle of Vicksburg. The raid was as successful as it was daring, and remarkably bloodless. By attacking the Confederate-controlled railroad it upset the plans and troop deployments of Confederate General John C. Pemberton. A Union cavalry regiment, led by Colonel John Marlowe (John Wayne), is sent on a raid behind Confederate lines to destroy a railroad and supply depot at Newton Station. Marlowe had been a railroad designer before the war, so who better to destroy one? With the troop is a new regimental surgeon, Major Henry Kendall (William Holden) who seems to be constantly at odds with his commander. Kendall is torn between the duty and the horror of war. Then to complicate matters, after the unit rests at the Greenbriar Plantation, Miss Hannah Hunter (Constance Towers), the plantation's mistress, eavesdrops on the colonel's plans. So to protect the mission, Marlowe is forced to drag her along. Initially hostile to her Yankee captor, Miss Hunter gradually warms to Marlow.