The Horse Soldiers finds John Wayne in the role of Colonel John Marlowe, in
command of a cavalry brigade during the Civil War. He is sent on a mission
behind enemy lines to destroy a Confederate supply depot, thus facilitating
General Grant’s efforts to take the town of Vicksburg
on the Mississippi River. The story is loosely based on
a real Civil War operation.
Wayne finds himself in conflict
with several people, including one of his officers, an aspiring politician
named Colonel Phil Secord, played by Willis Bouchey, and the brigade’s medical
officer, Major Henry Kendall, played by William Holden. Marlowe and Kendall
especially do not get along and at one point almost come to blows. It turns out
that Marlowe had a bad experience with doctors and has distrusted them ever
since.
Wayne’s problems really start
when the brigade bivouacs at the Greenbriar Plantation, owned by Hannah Hunter,
played with southern fire by Constance
Towers. Hannah Hunter is able to
play the ditzy southern belle to the hilt, while all along listening in on
Marlowe and his officers planning the operation. Kendall is sharp eyed enough
to catch her at it, so Hannah Hunter and her slave woman, Lukey, played by
Althea Gibson, are obliged to accompany the brigade on their mission, lest they
alert the Confederate Army.
Naturally, Hannah Hunter proves to be quite a handful, trying to escape at
on one occasion, trying to call out to a nearby Confederate unit on another.
Naturally, she and Marlowe start to become attracted to one another, despite
themselves. There’s a hilarious scene when Marlow questions two Confederate
deserters about Confederate troop dispositions and, having gotten the
information he needs, puts them both on the ground for insulting Miss Hunter.
The brigade takes the Confederate supply depot and puts it to the torch,
with the only depiction in cinema of railroad ties being turned into Sherman
neckties. There’s a horrific battle as the Confederates counterattack, an even
more horrific aftermath as Kendall, Hannah Hunter, and a local doctor try to
save as many of the wounded as they can, and suspenseful sequence when the brigade
tries to elude the pursing Confederates. The Confederates finally corner the
brigade just short of reaching Union lines. There’s a comical sequence when the
corps of cadets of a local boys’ military academy is turned out to slow the
brigade down (based on a real life incident that took place in another place
and time in the Civil War) and final, desperate charge to force a river
crossing and bring the brigade to safety. All in all, a very enjoyable and
underrated film.