Mountain Victory Summary

At the end of the Civil War, a one-armed Confederate officer and his black servant, Jubal, appear at the cabin of a Tennessee family on an April afternoon, seeking shelter overnight. The black servant wears a Union overcoat and a piece of oilcloth over his head. In a rather imperious manner, the servant announces that Major Saucier Weddel wants to lodge in their barn with their horses. Taken somewhat aback, the barefoot woman at the front door learns from the officer as he approaches their cabin that he is on his way home to Mississippi from Virginia. She invites them inside their dirt-floored cabin while she speaks with her husband. Her daughter flees to the kitchen where she watches through cracks in the logs as her older brother, Vatch, takes cartridges from a box stamped U.S. Army from their case...