The story opens with a title card indicating a time setting of
1776, before switching to footages of the
Battle of Bunker Hill and the
Siege of Yorktown. The scene then transitions to the "Battle of Bagle Heights", where Bugs, dressed as an American
Minuteman, is defending a wooden fort against the
red-coated Sam von Schamm (or Schmamm), the Hessian, attacking from a large stone fortress. Sam's fortress is heavily armored, bristling with artillery; by contrast, Bugs' defenses are rather pathetic, with only one cannon. Even then, Sam is the only one manning his fort, which makes capturing Bugs' difficult, considering the rabbit is able to retaliate by capturing his simultaneously. Sam attempts to continue his bombardment, but Bugs is able to put up a defense by simply catching his opponent's cannonballs with his own cannon and firing them back. When Bugs tires of that contest, he fires a large cork to plug Sam's main mortar. Sam is shot in the face by his own cannon while trying to remove the cork. Frustrated, Sam burrows his way under his base and into Bugs' base using a
pickaxe. Upon surfacing, Sam lights a match, only to find himself in a room full of
TNT. An explosion occurs in a shack where the room is, with Sam stumbling out, dazed. As the last gambit, Sam uses a keg of gunpowder in an attempt to blow up Bugs' base; unbeknownst to Sam, gunpowder falls into his back pocket due to a hole in the keg, creating a trail of gunpowder. After Sam lights the
fuse, Bugs, sitting on the powder keg and munching a carrot, calmly extinguishes it and nonchalantly lights the trail of gunpowder left by Sam. Fleeing from the inevitable trail, Sam runs away from the base and up an
apple tree, which eventually explodes on him. At this setback, a thoroughly defeated Sam declares himself a "Hessian without no aggression," and decides to defect to the rebels by saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." To this, Bugs and Sam march side by side in a fife-and-drum march reminiscent of the
Archibald Willard painting ''The Spirit of '76
, playing the song The Girl I Left Behind Me''. ==Cast==