Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 128
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Popular Culture Review
family’s plantation to the ground rather than allow it to fall into the hands of un
scrupulous carpetbaggers from the North. Langdon’s plan, in fact, has as its prece
dence actual history in which former officers of the Confederacy went to Mexico
to seek employment in Maximilian’s army. Jasper Ridley writes about this situa
tion in his historical biography, Maximilian anclJiiarez:
Many of the defeated Confederate troops were crossing the Rio Grande
into Mexico. Some of the younger men, who had served up to four years
in the army, had never had a civilian job and did not wish to have one.
They preferred to go to Mexico to take part in the fighting there.^
In both real history and the fictionalized cinema founded in that history. Con
federate soldiers Journeyed South instead of West to seek spiritual regeneration,
denying Frederick Jackson Turner’s fundamental mythology of the West as an
“escape valve” for those seeking a better life previously denied in the East. Such
migration as well denies the traditional expectations of the Western formula, hence
offering another reason for calling The Undefeated a Southern rather than a West
ern.
After John Henry Thomas rounds-up some 3000 horses, he and his men take
these animals to an unnamed post somewhere in the Southwest to sell them to the
U.S. Army. When they arrive, they first encounter two representatives of
Maximilian’s government who offer them top dollar (with “all expenses paid”) if
they would instead sell the horses to Maximilian’s army. At first, John Henry de
clines this generous offer, but quickly changes his mind when he then meets two
unscrupulous agents of the U.S. government who attempt to swindle him (with the
explanation that money is tight and times are tough during this Reconstruction
period). John Henry Thomas then turns his horse drive due south, past the Rio
Grande River and into the heart of Mexico. Naturally, while on the drive they cross
paths with James Langdon and his settlers, who are on their way to Durango to be
escorted by Maximilian’s soldiers further south to Mexico City. Thomas and
Langdon, past enemies during the war, now find themselves in similar circum
stances. The U.S. Army attempts to stop both groups at the Rio Grande. They plan
to seize and return Langdon and his followers, and they intend to prevent Thomas
from selling his horses to Maximilian. Neither plan succeeds and, in dramatic fash
ion, each group successfully makes the crossing into Mexico. When Thomas’s
adopted son, the Cherokee named Blue Boy, scouts bandits in the hills possibly
planning an ambush, Thomas decides to visit Langdon’s camp and give the warn
ing. Though a tense meeting ensues, Thomas and Langdon strike up a friendship,
despite their political differences, which eventually leads to Langdon’s invitation
to Thomas and his cowboys to celebrate the Fourth of July.