- A Southern family is divided when the first son joins the Northern army, while the second son stays loyal to the South.
- The tale starts in Dixieland and ends in a New York police court. A woman is arrested for vagrancy. When arraigned, the magistrate, a keen reader of human nature, recognizes her refinement and asks her to relate her story. The scene then shifts back a decade. You see a typical Southern plantation with its multitude of negro slaves. The woman in the police court was then a bride. Her three manly boys were the envy of the countryside. A young negro, rebelling at work, attacks Nelson, the youngest, and inflicts a deep gash on his wrist. For this, he is unmercifully horsewhipped. In revenge the negro kidnaps Nelson and his trail is lost when he swims a lake and escapes with the boy. Ten years later Civil War is declared. James, the oldest son, announces that he plans to join the Yankee troops. Heartbroken but proud, the father dons the gray uniform of the Confederacy. Then follow reproductions of the most thrilling battles of the war. During a terrific charge by Northern soldiers, the Confederates are finally driven to retreat. In this skirmish the father of James is unhorsed and killed. His body is recovered by James and sent back to the sorrowing wife and remaining son, Walter. Walter leaves to serve his father's cause. When he reaches headquarters he is sent on a dangerous errand into the Union lines. There he is arrested as a spy, but during the night overpowers his guard and escapes with information concerning Federal advances. He is hotly pursued by a squad under command of his own brother, James, though neither brother know that fact. Walter seeks refuge in his own home, and is there trapped. In trying to escape he leaps from a second story window. There is an exchange of shots and when the smoke clears both brothers are dead, each shot by the other. Broken in spirit, her wealth gone, the mother frees her slaves and becomes a wanderer. She sets out aimlessly to find her remaining son, Nelson, who was kidnapped many years previously. Then comes her arrest in New York for vagrancy. Startled and bewildered by the strange tale, the magistrate rouses himself and slowly bares his wrist. There he beholds the angry red scar inflicted by the negro when a child. Suddenly he realizes that the prisoner is his own mother.
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