In this episode John Brown (John Doucette) is gathering a band of criminals to fight against the United States. The real life John Brown was an American abolitionist who believed in and advocated armed insurrection as the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. In 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (still Virginia at the time) to start a liberation movement among the slaves there. He seized the armory, but seven people were killed and ten or more were injured.
For 30 years after his death John Brown was generally considered a hero for his opposition to slavery. From the1890s to the 1970s white historians generally counted him an insane and murderous fanatic.His armed attacks on the institution of slavery may have pushed the southern states to secede from the union.
Robert Conrad and Karen Sharpe had previously appeared together in Two Million Too Much (1963); a show which, like this episode of The Wild Wild West (1965), was written by Robert Hamner.
The Calvary scenes were lifted from "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" as evidenced by a few scenes where John Wayne is leading the charge