James Scott

Overly long and sickeningly sappy scene in which young Mitch Vogel explains to the family's pet hog Blossom why he must kill her to feed his younger siblings. He can't do it, so there is no "Old Yeller" factor. His monologue so nauseating the writers should have been sacked, though Vogel was a super child actor, especially in this movie. The situation of his family being run out of their house while the husband is away fighting in the Civil war is based on the real-life "Fort Hamby" situation in Wilkes County, N.C., from April-May 1865. A group of deserters from both sides, mostly Union, took over a strategically-positioned hilltop house and used it for murderous depredations on the civilian population, black, white, and Native American, across four counties as the Civil War was coming to an end. Unfortunately they were equipped with a mix of Sharps, Spencers, and Henrys, so they could outgun larger posse, law enforcement, and military groups sent against them. One of them tested from the hilltop his Sharps' ability to hit a small child at over half a mile down in the Yadkin plain below, doing so either (depending on the account) to a small black child playing on a rope swing in former master's yard, or a toddler on the back of his mother working in a field. Finally, returning Confederate veterans gathered a force of several hundred and laid siege to the two-story thick-log structure, fired it, and brought the reign of terror to an end. In the Disney version, it is done by the Confederate veterans (including the returning father of the dispossessed wife and children) supported by honorable Union occupation forces with repeating rifles (led by Richard Anderson). In warm-hearted Disney style, former-enemies-joining-together-as-Americans put an end to the horrible menace. Can't remember the lead villain actor, but he looks as constantly terrifying as Neville Brand when playing a loud, grime-colored, gun-blazing psychopath.