John Wayne in John Ford's The Horse Soldiers

Inspired by my own posting yesterday, late last night I watched The Horse Soldiers - a great John Ford cavalry movie starring John Wayne and William Holden.

Yesterday I noted that "this day" in Rebel Raiders history (April 17) was about Grierson's Raid, a famous incident depicted in the game by The Horse Soldiers card, which as I explained was named so in homage to the great 1959 movie and the historical novel of the same name.

I first saw The Horse Soldiers when it came out in 1959 (I was five).  I got the 45 record from the local record shop and learned the theme song (which I still know and, I admit, sang while watching the opening credits last night).  I have seen this movie many, many, many times and know the dialogue almost by heart (as I do with most John Wayne films and all of the John Ford cavalry films in which he starred - notably the famous "Cavalry Trilogy" of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande and Fort Apache). I read the novel the summer after my freshman year of college when I worked selling paint at Sears. The movie of course has so many stock characters and little asides and vignettes that are pure John Ford romanticism - but that perhaps is why it still resonates so with me, 54 years after I first saw it...

...and as the song from the movie says, I, too, "would ride right down to hell, and back, for Ulysses Simpson Grant" -- especially if John Wayne was leading.....