And I had the habit not to ever miss a Lesley Selander's feature, though he has made so many of them, mostly grade Z, but I have never cared, on the contrary. So small budgets films have so much charm, precisely this lack of ambition, that I have an inner software that permits me to appreciate, love them for they are: not pretentious. I agree that the bulk of them are lousy, forgettable, but sometimes you may find some true gems, where screenwriters dare to show unusual stuff, ideas, schemes, characters. This is unfortunately not the case for this western. No surprise, but so much charm for western buffs.

John Dehner gets a rare top billing in this interesting western. He's the commanding officer at the fort, just as Fort Sumter surrenders. The enlisted men, with mixed loyalties are ragging each other on with reprises of "Dixie" and "John Brown's Body", and he faces them down. He tells them they're soldiers of the US Army, and they'll behave that way. Then orders come from Washington to discharge every man of uncertain allegiance, so he resigns, planning to lead he other Southerners to Texas to enlist. He leaves his daughter, Frances helm, with the new, young C.O., Greg Palmer, saying that national loyalties may differ, but love conquers all. Then he heads out into hostile Indian territory.

Lesley Selander directs this one without much fuss. He focuses on the sense of honor and loyalty of the professional soldier instead, and Dehner's aristocratic presence makes this one to watch. Keep an eye out for Harry Dean Stanton, still uncredited in his third movie role.

I can't tell you how many Civil War films I've seen that pitted brother against brother, but this story had an interesting idea I haven't seen before. It had to do with a Cavalry outfit literally days before the start of the Civil War that's sent into turmoil when news is announced that Confederate forces have fired on Fort Sumter. I guess it's something you don't think about in history class, but here you had Southern soldiers ready to break with their Northern counterparts over their divided loyalties while serving together at a remote Western post. The kicker here is that a warring tribe of Sioux are waiting nearby to receive a ransom payoff to keep the peace, but now the Southern cohort has their eyes on a gold shipment that was intended for that purpose.

If all that weren't enough, you have your Northern soldier (Gregg Palmer),Southern belle (Frances Helm) romance that's threatened by the new circumstance. The Major in charge of the fort is himself a Virginian, and in a scene I wouldn't have expected, Seth Bradner (John Dehner) promotes Captain James Tenslip (Palmer) to the same rank in order to resign his post and lead the Southern sympathizers across Indian territory on their way to a Confederate assignment.

Sioux Chief Red Cloud (Eddie Little Sky, cool name!) doesn't quite know how to process this bit of information, so holds Major Bradner in exchange for the ransom they expected in the first place. Tenslip sees it as his duty to come to the rescue of his former brothers-in-arms, and leads his forces to battle the Sioux, but the film ends rather abruptly when the fighting's over, with the Southerners continuing to go on their way. It all ended rather anti-climactically, but at just over an hour, the story didn't leave much time to reflect on what just happened.