Movie Title

The young father starts with his company of Union soldiers for the front, bidding his wife and two children a tearful adieu. A few days later a foraging party of Confederates are surprised and scattered by the Union forces. One of their number is driven in the direction of the home of the young father. Reaching the well, he finds the child of the Union soldier in the act of drawing a bucket of water. The Confederate begs her to shield him, and despite her prejudice she hides him in the well, stands guard and throws his pursuers off the trail when they arrive. The Confederate is truly grateful and would kiss the child, but this she will not allow, pointing to his uniform. She feels she has done her humane duty, and so orders him to go, and thus he is enabled to rejoin his comrades. At the Union headquarters the young father is given sealed orders and dispatched upon a perilous errand which necessitates his passing through the Confederate lines. He makes his way through the lines by disabling the sentinel, but he has not gotten far before the Confederates start after him. Making his way to a thick wood as the dusk comes on, he manages to elude them in the darkness of the night, although these man hunters scour the woods armed with torches. The next morning he manages to reach his own home, and falls exhausted on a couch from fatigue and the wound he received during the pursuit. There are only the two children, one of whom rushes of to the Union quarters for aid, leaving the youngest with the father. The little one has hardly barred the door when the pursuing Confederates arrive. The father, realizing the hopelessness of his position, tells the little one to bring a lighted candle with which he burns the papers entrusted to him. The Confederate whom we first was at the well, is in command of the party, and forces his way alone into the room where the wounded father lies. Discovering the papers which he coveted destroyed, he is furious and is on the point of finishing the helpless soldier, when the child halts his action. He then finds himself face to face with his little savior of a few days before, and when the other Confederates enter he pretends the father is dead and the papers destroyed, so they leave. Later the Union forces arrive with an army surgeon. Our little miss has proven herself the heroine of the day.