Two Flags West

Two Flags West is a 1950 Western drama set during the American Civil War, directed by Robert Wise and starring Joseph Cotten, Jeff Chandler, Linda Darnell, and Cornell Wilde. The opening credits contain the following statement: On December 8th, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Special Proclamation, whereby Confederate Prisoners of War might gain their freedom, provided they would join the Union Army to defend the frontier West against the Indians. Based on the historical service of "Galvanized Yankees", the film tells the story of a company of imprisoned Confederate Army cavalry troopers given such amnesty. The company of Georgia veterans journeys to a remote New Mexico post commanded by an embittered, Southerner-hating major who expects them to desert at the first opportunity. The fulfillment of that expectation is challenged by an attack on the fort itself by Kiowa. Two Flags West was one of a wave of Civil War reconciliation-themed Westerns in the 1950s, in which soldiers from North and South combine against a common foe, that included Rocky Mountain (1950), The Last Outpost (1951), Escape from Fort Bravo (1953), and Revolt at Fort Laramie (1957).