When I choose a Western, it is usually because I tell myself that I need to see more of them. Incidentally, I have the same thought when it comes to films from the 1970s. The problem with The Horse Soldiers (1959) is that it is not a Western. It has many of the features of a classic of that genre. It is directed by John Ford and stars John Wayne. Because of them, not to mention the title, many will lump it into that category. As a Catholic, I have some experience with these kinds of mislabels. It is an age-old complaint of mine that Catholicism is used as a stand-in for Christianity, even if nobody wearing the collar in a given movie is intended to represent the Church. It is a bit like thinking all of Ford’s films are Westerns. Whatever this one is, it meanders to a conclusion that does little to satisfy on any level.

Whatever genre one assigns it, The Horse Soldiers begins in the spring of 1863 with Union Colonel John Marlowe (John Wayne) receiving an assignment from General Ulysses S. Grant (Stan Jones) that sounds straightforward only when viewed on a map. With Vicksburg resisting Union efforts, Colonel Marlowe is to lead a cavalry brigade hundreds of miles behind Confederate lines, destroy the railroad and supply depot at Newton Station, Mississippi, and then escape south to Union-held Baton Rouge. Speed and secrecy are essential, which helps explain his irritation when regimental surgeon Major Henry Kendall (William Holden) joins the expedition. Colonel Marlowe has little patience for doctors after losing his wife following an operation, while Major Kendall considers preserving life more important than military efficiency. Their disagreement becomes clear when Major Kendall leaves the column to deliver a baby for a former slave. Colonel Marlowe places him under arrest for abandoning his military duty, but Major Kendall replies that he took a higher oath first. A Catholic might quibble over precisely which oath outranks which, but the idea that care for human life does not conveniently stop at army lines is difficult to argue with. The brigade eventually reaches Greenbriar Plantation, where Hannah Hunter (Constance Towers), an ardent Confederate sympathizer, welcomes the Union officers with exaggerated Southern hospitality while her maid, Lukey (Althea Gibson), assists her. Hannah and Lukey secretly listen through a fireplace flue as Colonel Marlowe explains that after destroying Newton Station, the brigade will continue south rather than retrace its route. Major Kendall catches them, leaving Colonel Marlowe with little choice but to take both women along so they cannot reveal the plan. Hannah repeatedly tries to escape or signal Confederate troops, earning increasingly exasperated treatment from Colonel Marlowe, though the hostility between them gradually gives way to mutual respect. Reaching Newton Station, the Union soldiers capture its small Confederate force, among whom Major Kendall discovers an old friend, Colonel Jonathan Miles (Carleton Young), who has lost an arm in battle. Colonel Marlowe hopes to destroy the depot without a major fight, but an approaching train turns out to be packed with Confederate soldiers. The prisoners join the attack, and a bloody battle erupts. Colonel Miles raises the Confederate flag and leads a charge until Major Kendall knocks him down to keep him from being killed. Afterward, Major Kendall converts a hotel into a hospital while Hannah and Lukey help tend the wounded. Colonel Marlowe, horrified by the casualties, drinks while his men destroy the railroad and supplies, bitterly noting that before the war he made his living building railroads rather than blowing them apart. The brigade resumes its flight toward Baton Rouge with Confederate forces pursuing it. During a later skirmish, Lukey is shot and killed, devastating Hannah and further stripping away any romantic notions about the adventure. Colonel Marlowe also begins revealing why he despises physicians, telling Hannah about the doctors he blames for his wife’s death. As for Major Kendall, he and Colonel Marlowe increasingly recognize that each is doing what he believes duty requires, though not before exchanging some punches. The strangest confrontation comes when cadets from a nearby military academy march out to challenge the Union column. They are boys, some barely old enough to carry their rifles, but they advance and fire with unnerving determination. Colonel Marlowe refuses to slaughter them and orders his men to withdraw rather than turn the encounter into a massacre, a sensible reminder that victory does not require taking every life one has the power to take. With Confederate cavalry closing in, the exhausted brigade finally approaches a bridge leading toward safety. Enemy troops hold the opposite side, and Colonel Marlowe is wounded in the leg during the fighting. This gives Major Kendall the opportunity, perhaps not entirely without satisfaction, to operate on the man who has spent most of the journey insulting his profession. Colonel Marlowe soon returns to command and leads the attack that secures the crossing. His men rig the bridge with explosives so the pursuing Confederates cannot follow. Several Union soldiers, however, are too badly wounded to be moved. Major Kendall chooses to remain with them, knowing he will be captured, rather than abandon patients who need him. Colonel Marlowe finally offers him the respect that has been missing throughout their journey, and the two part as friends. Hannah must remain behind as well, and Colonel Marlowe admits that he has fallen in love with her. Their romance has had to compete with war, kidnapping, repeated escape attempts, and mutual political hostility, which is perhaps not the courtship method the Church would recommend, but they part with promises to see one another again. As Confederate cavalry approaches, Colonel Marlowe lights the fuse and becomes the last Union rider to race across the bridge before it explodes behind him. Major Kendall remains with the wounded as Confederate medical help arrives, while Hannah watches Colonel Marlowe and his surviving men ride toward Baton Rouge. The film concludes with the Confederates arriving at Major Kendall’s hospital and offering their assistance with the wounded.

Because The Horse Soldiers is set during the Civil War and was filmed in the 1950s, the issue of why the Confederacy was fighting is skirted in the film. Whenever the cause is mentioned, it is always focused on states’ rights. Whenever Southern sympathizers, then and (sadly) now, want to talk about their enthusiasm for the South during what they termed “The War of Northern Aggression,” they come up with this little lie that obscures the truth: at the top of those “states’ rights” for which they were fighting was the protection of the institution of slavery. There are African Americans represented here, but they look on mostly bewildered at the things happening around them and to them. There is the scene where Major Kendall delivers the baby of a former slave, but it is the white person helping the black person, which suggests a power dynamic that was present in the 1950s, not to mention the 1960s, of course. What this all suggests is an obfuscation of the truth, which also plays into what I mentioned in the introduction about representing Catholicism. By the way, if you feel like I am grasping at straws here, it is because the movie does not give much to go on in terms of Catholic material. However, there is a gentleman wearing clerics underneath a Confederate uniform who leads the cadets against Colonel Marlowe’s force, as previously mentioned. Would there have been a priest working at a Southern military academy in Mississippi in the 1860s? I suppose anything is possible, but it would have been highly irregular. There were some Catholics who supported the South during the conflict, but the Vatican never recognized their government. There was also the Church’s stance against slavery with which to contend. This is all a long way of saying that one scene, like many of the rest, did not make a lot of sense.

There is not much sense in watching The Horse Soldiers unless you are an avid Holden or Wayne fan. In looking into the film’s production, apparently the two argued a lot, which was one of the reasons it flopped. In general, it is just not that good, and there are other, better options.