The Fugitive 1910

Two soldiers, both named John, bid farewell to their mothers and fiancées to go fight in the war—one as a Confederate private and the other as a Union corporal. Corporal John Edwin August leads a small foraging party, while Confederate John Edward Dillon fights alongside a larger Confederate force. Waiting at home are the Union’s fiancée Lucy Cotton and the Confederate’s fiancée Dorothy West, each left to hope for their loved ones’ safe return. The party is ambushed, the Union group pulled back, and Corporal John is separated from his comrades.

In the woods, the two Johns come face to face. They exchange fire, and the Confederate John is killed. The Union soldier flees as the remaining Confederates close in, a tense moment that could have ended in tragedy for either man.

By chance, the surviving Union fighter seeks shelter in the home of the Confederate family he has just changed the course of. The Confederate mother, Kate Bruce, initially orders him to leave. When the Confederate soldiers draw near, she hides him. The Confederates arrive, search the house, and lay the body of her dead son before departing. Only then does she recognize who killed him. She tells the Union soldier to go, but when the Confederates return, she again hides him, thinking of her own son’s mother and fearing the consequences of letting him be found. Ultimately, the Union soldier is able to rejoin his side.

After the war ends, the Union soldier returns to his family. The Confederate son’s former fiancée, Dorothy West, introduces her new beau to the Confederate mother, Kate Bruce, signaling how the personal tides of love and loss linger long after the guns fall quiet.