Pharaoh's Army

[first lines]

Preacher:
By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou return unto the ground, for out of it we was taken. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Heavenly Father, pick this child up on heaven's side. Put the grave behind for the promise on the other side, that she might live and abide with you.

Narrator:
The Yankees could steal what we had, but not what we hadn't got yet. So I was determined to put in next year's corn crop.

Chicago:
[returning] Captain, there was a barn burnt down. Some old man and his wife were killed.

Captain John Hull Abston:
Where?

Chicago:
There. [pointing]

Rodie:
No more than five miles up the creek.

Captain John Hull Abston:
[to Sarah] You know who's place it is?

Sarah Anders:
Yankees.

Rodie:
Ma'am they weren't Yankees. Just some old farmer and his wife.

Sarah Anders:
They sent two boys into the Union Army. [splits hatefully and goes into house]

Rodie:
[splits back] They were just farmers...

Narrator:
Like I said, the war was rough through here.

Preacher:
You'll burn in hell for your sins.

Captain John Hull Abston:
Then I guess we'll meet again.

Sarah Anders:
[trying to shoot at them with an empty rifle]

Chicago:
I thought she was sweet-um!

Neely:
No, we can't trust johnnies.

[last lines]

Title Card:
In 1941 a Kentucky mountaineer returned to a remote sinkhole, the place where during the Civil War he had killed and buried a Union soldier. This film was inspired by his story as told to the folklorist Harry Caudill.

Boy:
Are you a General?

Captain John Hull Abston:
A General, hmm, no, just a Captain.

Boy:
How many men you kill?

Captain John Hull Abston:
You really wanna know?

Boy:
[eagerly yes]

Captain John Hull Abston:
None.

Chicago:
[speaking with a European accent]

Captain John Hull Abston:
Where are you from?

Chicago:
Chicago.

Captain John Hull Abston:
No, I mean before that.

Chicago:
Ah, a small village in Bonn. It's very small.

Captain John Hull Abston:
You damn foreigner. Why get mixed up in this?

Chicago:
I think I get to see new places. I get tired of chopping sausage.

Captain John Hull Abston:
Pretty thin reason to get shot at.

Chicago:
You got a better one? I've heard your big reasons. To save the Union? [scoffs] This is what the General said. To free the slaves? Nobody that I know of what to get killed to free a bunch of nigs.

Captain John Hull Abston:
It's a mess, ain't it?

Chicago:
Why did you sign up?

Captain John Hull Abston:
Minister. Brought a run-away slave into our church and ripped off his shirt and showed off the ugliest damn strap scars. Then right there from the pulpit the minister asked for volunteers, and I stood up, and here I am, stealing chickens...

[last lines]

Narrator:
The Captain asked us to do the decent thing. I don't guess the Civil War was about bein' decent. We dug up the big red head and floated him down Meshack Creek. Ma said he come up that creek to cause trouble, and we sent him back down where he come from.

Narrator:
We drug the skinny Yankee up a hill to a sink hole where a big sycamore tree had fallen over and turned up its roots. We throwed the skinny Yankee in the sink hole and throwed some dirt on him. And I don't guess ma hated the skinny Yankee as much as the big red head. Pap never made it back. That war was a widow maker.

Narrator:
Ma told me to never never tell anyone what we had done. And I don't think I ever did, except maybe once, or maybe twice.