Kurt Russell was fifteen or sixteen. He plays a cute Confederate child soldier ordered to man a remote outpost on a river along with another kid. A sergeant and lieutenant have come to check on them. The sergeant browbeats Russell while the lieutenant has taken a liking to him. Before they ride away, the man gazes at him and says he'll come back to see him later. When he's alone.
Russell and the other child soldier wrestle over a gun when the lieutenant suddenly re-appears. They accidentally shoot him. Knowing they'll be executed, the other kid runs away. Russell crosses the river and joins some Union soldiers he befriended. They take him as a prisoner but he's freed by and joins a gang of traitorous Confederate marauders.
The children in this thing fight in a war, face execution for desertion and for shooting an officer who it sounded like was coming for some immoral purpose, and the kids love smoking. And this was made for The Wonderful World of Disney.
With James MacArthur and Peggy Lipton. All white cast. Free on Movieland Tv.
I thought Disney was the only studio in Hollywood that was on the United States' side in the Civil War, but I guess I was wrong. As I understand it, during the silent era, Hollywood found that every time they made a pro-Union movie, they'd get angry letters from backward Southerners who were convinced that the South won the war.
You know, on The Beverly Hillbillies, how no one could convince Granny that the North won the war? That was apparently a real thing.
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