- A gentle North Carolina farmer becomes a daring Union scout who leads hundreds of Rebel deserters, Union sympathizers, and escaped slaves across enemy lines and rugged Smoky Mountains to safety in Tennessee.
- Old Sam Massey, a smart man who never learned to read or write, bookends this biopic by dictating his Civil War memoir to his grown daughter on the porch of a farmhouse in upstate New York in 1919. But first he demonstrates his continued prowess with his old Spencer rifle by shooting six apples off a tree. Old Sam also provides occasional narration during the movie.
Young Sam Massey (i.e., Sam) is a patriotic western North Carolina farmer who opposes secession and abhors slavery. Eventually forced to enlist in the Confederate army, he deserts after a few months. From then on, he's wanted dead or alive by the notorious Home Guard led by villain Jake Edwards.
Sam is helped to escape north to Tennessee by a childhood friend, a young slave woman named Lottie. She continues to assist him at key points during the movie by providing food and information.
After making it to Tennessee, Sam is recruited by Union General Carter to become a scout. Sam initially turns down that offer but is persuaded to accept it by the war's most prolific Union scout Daniel Ellis.
Sam carries out several challenging but successful missions during which he leads Rebel deserters, Union sympathizers, and escaped slaves across enemy lines and over the rugged Smoky Mountains to safety in Tennessee. He also leads a raid that destroys a saltpeter works on the Pigeon River. Not only must Sam avoid Rebel army and Home Guard patrols and witness his demolished homestead, he's faced with the death of his infant daughter, raging rivers, severe weather, and dangerous wild animals.
Following one mission, Sam is asked by General Carter to carry out a secret plan to rescue two of the general's relatives from the Waynesville, NC, jail before they're hanged. This mission fails dramatically, and Sam barely escapes with his life. One of his companions, Pink Inman, who was fictionalized in the book and portrayed by Jude Law in the movie "Cold Mountain" was actually killed during this mission.
A kind-hearted man, Sam prefers to give his enemies the opportunity to take a loyalty oath to the United States instead of being shot or led north to prison. He even gives cowardly Jake Edwards that option before humiliating him in front of members of the Home Guard.
Sam is eventually betrayed by a man whose life he once saved. Although heavily guarded, Sam escapes on his way to infamous Andersonville prison. However, he's been shot in the leg. After a painful, food-less, multi-day voyage over snow-covered mountains and across icy streams, Sam makes it to his parents' farm where he slowly recovers. On his final trip north, while still using a crutch, he leads a dozen men to Knoxville where the war's end is celebrated following Lee's surrender.
After the war, Sam resumes farming, but ill-feeling persists in his hometown of Waynesville. A confrontation in the general store results in Sam shooting and killing his nemesis Jake Edwards. Unable to get a fair trial, Sam heads north to Tennessee, stopping first to ask a lawyer friend to seek a pardon from the Governor for him. A year later, in a stirring July 4, 1867 celebration in Waynesville, NC, Sam is surprised to receive his pardon in front of his family and friends.
We return to Old Sam in New York for apple pie and a brief soliloquy as he salutes the American flag on a pole in the front yard.
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