In 1864 during the
American Civil War, a group of Confederate prisoners held in a
Union prison stockade at
Plattsburgh, New York, not many miles from the Canada–US border, escape. They head for
Montréal, Quebec and then plan a raid across the border into
St. Albans, Vermont, to rob its banks to replenish the Confederate treasury and burn buildings as revenge for
Sherman's March to the Sea and to tie up the Union forces. Major Neal Benton (
Van Heflin), the leader of the raid, heads into St. Albans as a spy and develops ambiguous feelings about what he is doing when he becomes friends with an attractive young war widow and her friendly son, who he boards with, masquerading as a Canadian businessman. Other raiders stay in an abandoned barn or pose as travelling street peddlers. One drunken member interrupts a church service and is promptly shot dead by Benton, the raid leader, almost giving away the plot. The townspeople shower Benton with gratitude for this, not realizing his own true identity. On the appointed day, Major Benton in town, and the other raiders at the barn, all don Confederate uniforms, take some citizens hostage, rob the bank's
strongbox at gunpoint, burn down the town hall, and gallop north just ahead of an arriving Union force. Burning a bridge behind them, they barely elude the Union forces and make a successful getaway to nearby Canada. ==Cast==