Santa Fe Trail

Romantic rivals get caught in the battle to stop abolitionist John Brown.

American Western directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Ronald Reagan and Alan Hale.

There are several major inaccuracies with the several of the characters and timeline depicted in the film. First, Stuart, Custer, and Sheridan (among other notable Civil War officers) are all depicted as classmates in the same graduating class at West Point and all stationed in the Kansas territory at the same time. In reality the three graduated at different times–in 1854, 1861, and 1853, respectively. This depiction of these future Union and Confederate officers adds an element of foreshadowing predicting the coming Civil War conflict, in which former American officers would be forced to choose sides following Southern secession. Second, future Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who was Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce in 1854 (the time set at the beginning of the film), was not in this Cabinet position by the time of John Brown's raid of Harper's Ferry in 1859. By then, the position was being held by John B. Floyd, a member of the Buchanan administration.