The Rebel

I'd like to send him

to visit his brother, the devil.

Dirty Yankee butcher.

Lee was worth 10 of that craven Grant.

Now, I'd give the Army didn't take it Vicksburg

to get him in my gun sight for half a minute.

Maybe somebody will.

Yeah, ain't nobody in Abilene to get near enough.

Well, Grant's staff knows where this town stood,

and still stands.

Maybe we could plant a bomb,

blow up the railroad.

Or maybe you could all go home

and quit fighting a war that ended two years ago.

Why don't you quit acting the town philosopher, McCune.

That blue-belly killed your son.

That'll do for now, loudmouth.

Come on Jimmy, get to your room.

The poor lad's own father he killed.

And you, McCune, want to scatter

our victor's roses in his bloody pair.

Jimmy, go on now, you hear me?

Alright, Gramps.

Now you listen, loudmouth.

It's about time we quit living in a world

that just isn't anymore.

It's about time...

Who says it isn't anymore?

General Grant?

A pack of Yankees up north?

Well, let me find out, we don't kill so easy.

You know, for someone who never lifted a gun,

never even saw a Yankee up close,

you sure are full of fight.

What are you intimating, McCune?

Someone had to supply beef for our boys.

I'll leave it up to somebody who did fight.

Ain't that so, Johnny?

Beef.

Sure, we had plenty of beef.

We had beef because all we had to eat

was beans and goobers.

Mr. McCune, the paper's all put to bed, sir.

Alright Johnny, thank you.

Two cents.

Exactly what you and your Yankee-lovin' people is worth.

And I hope somebody takes a scatter gun

and blows Grant into as many pieces as this.

Ah, those fools.

I lost something too, my only son.

Oh, how long, Johnny?

How long before the poison of defeat

gets flushed from our systems?

A couple of years ago they were

fighting and killing, now they're just talking.

Little while yet, maybe they'll stop counting

what was lost, and start to build.

Johnny, you know, for someone your age and experience,

you're uncommonly clean of hate and bitterness.

Well, I like to think it's coming along, Mr. McCune.

But believe me, it took some scrubbin'.

Goodnight, sir.

Goodnight, Johnny.

Johnny.

Jimmy, what's a matter with you creeping around

in here like a cougar, I could've hurt you.

What's going on here?

Jimmy, why aren't you upstairs?

And what in the name of common sense

are you doing with Johnny's gun?

Well, I was just showing him something.

No you weren't, Johnny.

There's no cost to tell a lie.

I was stealing it.

Why?

To kill someone.

Him, General U.S. Grant.

Son, now don't talk like your adult.

They'd never be looking for somebody

my age to do it.

And I could get close enough,

and I could kill him.

For what?

For killin' my pa.

Oh Jimmy, General Grant never killed your pa.

Well, somebody like him did.

Some dirty blue-belly, and he gave the orders.

Jimmy, those orders weren't directed

at your pa, not as a person.

And General Grant himself was taking orders.

It was a mean, unmerciful thing called war.

But isn't one side right, and the other one wrong?

Not always.

It's just that people think different about things,

so sometimes they fight.

And good men die.

Good men like your pa.

And the killing's over, Jimmy.

Why is it?

If you've got a gun, why is it over?

How do you answer that?

I guess I don't really know.

But maybe someone closer to his own age could try.

Sit down, Jimmy.

Here, hold onto the gun, but sit down for a minute.

You know, it wasn't too long ago

I felt pretty near the way you do.

For more than three years,

I've been fighting with the Confederacy.

Watching them that marched and lived with me

getting fewer and fewer.

Seeing others maimed and blinded.

And in a way, I got to be kind of blind myself,

cause I didn't want it to end.

Yeah, that's right.

I couldn't stand to get beat no matter what it cost.

First part of the war I was with the Third Texas.

And then I spent almost a year

in a Yankee prison camp at Rock Island, and I escaped.

Last six months, I was with Lee's Army, Northern Virginia.

On April 19th, 1865, we were at Appomattox.

And a man who was a lot wiser than me

knew we were beat.

Doug.

Doug, we can't let it happen,

it's gotta be stopped.

Johnny, are you off your feet?

I mean do you think that you,

a little old nothing of a corporal,

is gonna tell General Robert E. Lee what to do?

It's all over, boy.

Well not yet, it's not.

Well, it will be.

Thank God in a matter of minutes, too.

No more.

No more fearing death every morning.

Pretty soon, old fuzzy face Grant

and his staff will ride up outside of McLean's house

and Lee will sign that piece of paper,

and give him that tin sword,

and we can go home.

To what?

To boot licking shame and suffering?

To life.

To my Cora, and little Danny.

Well, not me.

Well, just go on.

You stay here and keep playing soldier boy.

Don't you fun me, paperback!

I fought every day you fought.

Well, did you fight as much as Stone Jackson?

Or Jeb Stuart, or Hill, or Pender, or Rhodes?

Well, they're all dead,

and most of their soldier boys with them.

Sure they are.

And if we give up what they all died for, what?

Well, sometimes you lose.

Well not yet!

Yes, yes, now, lost!

Now look, Johnny, I ain't no general,

but I know something.

Two weeks ago, Gordon had 75,000 men,

and now he's got less than 2,000, all starved.

And Theo's got more men absent than present.

And the only thing he has left to pick his whole army

is 60 bone beaten men.

Now what do you expect to fight with?

So long as I got a gun, I fight.

If I didn't, I'd be untrue to those screaming Rebs

I charged with at Shiloh and Chancellorsville.

We vowed together that we'd fight

until we were all dead if we had to.

If men are ghosts, they'd go right on fighting.

Well, that's all you're gonna have to fight with boy,

is a phantom army.

As far as I'm concerned, Grant can have all allegiance.

Grant.

Grant.

Grant.

That hog-backed, blister face.

I can just see him strutting up to General Lee.

Trying to make him grovel, humiliating a saint.

Beating him over the head with the bones

of the Confederacy.

Well, there ain't nothing you can do about it now.

So you just might as well be content

to witness history in the making,

this here Palm Sunday.

Witness?

I'm gonna make history, and alone.

That is, if you don't have the mind to help.

What you got nurturing in that hot Texas head of yours?

This morning I was in McLean's house.

Right now, General Lee is sitting in the parlor.

I'm climbing around back to an attic room

right over that parlor.

There's a vent there.

I got it all laid out.

When Grant walks into that room,

he's gonna run straight into a head full of lead.