- Kit Carson Holliday: Jeb, I'm frightened. That boy is crippled for life. And that man on the train, he died for a principle. A man killed for a principle. One of them is wrong, but which one?
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Who knows the answer to that, Kit. Everybody in America is trying to decide.
- Kit Carson Holliday: Yes, by words from the East, and by guns from the West. But one day, the words will turn into guns.
- Kit Carson Holliday: Oh, Jeb, what does pride got to do with guns?
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Kit, the two things kind of come together down South. You can't pry them apart. Not even with guns.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: What do you mean trailing us halfway across Kansas?
- Windy Brody: Well, we don't want you to get lost. You see, I know every wrinkle of this here country like my own face.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Well, you should. It's just as dirty!
- Caption: The road to Santa Fe was on iron rails to Kansas... and pure nerve from there on.
- Cowboy: Kansas is all right for men and dogs, but it's pretty hard on women and horses.
- John Brown: I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood. Aye, let them hang me. I forgive them, and may God forgive them for they know not what they do!
- Cyrus K. Holliday: Kit, once when you were about this high, Tex and Windy brought home a wolf cub with a broken back. You nursed it for weeks, but it finally died with his head in your lap. You cried for days. But it was just a wolf cub. And it probably would have grown up to be a killer like its father.
- George Armstrong Custer: They're running! They're getting away!
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: No they're not. We're going after them!
- George Armstrong Custer: Hey, wait a minute! They outnumber us three to one!
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Well, if it makes you nervous, don't count 'em.
- Caption: Leavenworth, Kansas: Where the railroad and civilization ended, the Santa Fe Trail began. The old Spanish road from Mexico, now lusty with new life and a new motto - "God gets off at Leavenworth and Cyrus Holliday drives you from there to the Devil."
- Opening caption: 1854 - The United States Military Academy - West Point. When the gray cradle of the American army was only a small garrison with few cadets, but under a brilliant Commandant, named Robert E. Lee it was already building for the defense of a newly won nation in a new world.
- John Brown: I am only walking as God foreordained I should walk. All my actions, even the follies leading to this disaster, were decreed to happen long ages before this world began. But I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the coming day, or a storm so furious as to prevent the return of warm sunshine to the country at peace. I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood. Aye, let them hang me. I forgive them, and may God forgive them for they know not what they do!
- Tex Bell: [after teasingly being disparaged by Jeb Stuart] What has being flat-footed got to do with ridin' a horse?
- Windy Brody: Callin' me a rumpot's what hurt me. I ain't had a drink since noon!
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Say, who could I talk to in this kind of a town without arousing suspicion?
- Tex Bell: [thinks for a moment] The town barber.
- Windy Brody: That's right! Anytime a barber can't talk to a stranger, he's liable to go crazy!
- Tex Bell: [basting a steer carcass on a spit] What did you have to go and lie for, tell the major we was the best barbecuers along the Santa Fe Trail?
- Windy Brody: [turning the spit] I just mentioned it sort of casual. How'd I know he was gonna take us up on it?
- Tex Bell: Wait'll he starts eatin' this. Huh, he won't take us up- he'll take us up and out.
- Windy Brody: You think it's gonna be hard-chewin', Tex?
- Tex Bell: Well, I dunno. I *still* got a hunch... we should have skinned it first.
- Windy Brody: We took the horns off of it, didn't we?
- Rader: You find the truth hard to take, hmm?
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Listen, Rader, I know the truth of this problem far better than you do. The South will settle it - in its own time and in its own way. But not through the propaganda of renegades like this John Brown or any of his followers.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: I told you before we started you had that curb chain on too tight. It's not the first time you've cut his tongue.
- Rader: Ever tried putting a curb on your tongue?
- Cyrus K. Holliday: I thought two years in Boston would make a lady out of you.
- Kit Carson Holliday: So did I. It just popped out.
- Jefferson Davis: Unity of spirit is our greatest strength. You men now have but one duty. One alone. America. With your unswerving loyalty and the grace of God our nation shall have no fears for the future. And your lives will have been spent in the noblest of all causes: the defense of the rights of man.
- Robert E. Lee: You must be taught that lying to protect a friend is sometimes an extremely dangerous practice.
- George Armstrong Custer: You know, the first time I saw you at the graduation I thought of what Napoleon said when he first met Josephine.
- Kit Carson Holliday: What was that?
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: He said, "I never knew this savage land they call America could breath such perfect beauty in mortal form."
- Kit Carson Holliday: Oh. Thank you. That's a lovely line.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Yes, isn't it? George has been using it for years.
- Robert E. Lee: All seven of you men violated the first sin of military conduct: the traffic and violent exchange of political ideas - which are not the affairs of an American solider. You must be punished and punished severely. I shall request of the War Department upon your graduation next week that all of you be assigned to the most dangerous branch of the United States Army: the Second United States Cavalry, now stationed at Fort Leavenworth in the Kansas territory.
- Cyrus K. Holliday: This is what they mean when call it bloody Kansas. There'll never be any peace along the Santa Fe Trail while John Brown or any of his followers are alive.
- George Armstrong Custer: You were going to tell me something more about Kansas.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Yes, what do you do on Saturday nights for fun here?
- Kit Carson Holliday: Well, as I remember, half of Leavenworth takes a bath another the half gets drunk. And since there are only two bathtubs in town, things get kind of exciting around midnight.
- Kit Carson Holliday: Ninety eight tons of freight ready to roll and no orders for loading. How did you run this business while I was away?
- Cyrus K. Holliday: That's why I sent you away to show you what a skirt was. Look at your clothes, look at the grease on your nose. What would your friends in Boston think of you now?
- Kit Carson Holliday: Frankly, dad, I don't much care.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: By the way, how did they ever came to name you Kit Carson Holliday?
- Kit Carson Holliday: Well, Mr. Carson and my dad were very good friends. And they were so sure I was going to be a boy that they named me before I was born.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Oh, I see. Well, I'm certainly glad they were wrong.
- George Armstrong Custer: Me too.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Me too.
- Kit Carson Holliday: Me too!
- John Brown: As once you sent the ravens to save Elijah, so now you have delivered into my hands the precious means of continuing Thy Holy work. The Lord our God is a great God - a mighty and a terrible who regardth not persons nor taketh reward. The Lord is a man of war. Thy right hand shall become glorious through power. Thy right hand, oh, God shall dash in pieces the enemy.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Haven't you got any heart at all?
- Kit Carson Holliday: Yes, I have, and it's going to stay right where it is. I don't know a thing about you, Jeb Stuart. My brother thinks you're wonderful. But then he was dropped on his head when he was a baby.
- Tex Bell: Oh, now don't start lying to me, you double crossing buzzard. I know you didn't buy that there lookin' glass to see your own ugly mug.
- Windy Brody: I suppose you're figurin' on wearin' that female cinchin' belt. Wait till Lilly sees what you brung her. She'll brain ya! If it ain't physical impossible.
- Kit Carson Holliday: Where in thunder have you been?
- Windy Brody: Well, you see, we had to buy these knick-knacks. Well, we sort of got a gal in Santa Fe, Lilly, uh...
- Tex Bell: Hofstadter and what do you mean we? I'm engaged to her.
- Windy Brody: Well, who ain't?
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: The boy is badly hurt. It's his father's madness really striking home now.
- George Armstrong Custer: Jeb, there's a purpose behind that madness. One that can't easily be dismissed.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: George, you've seen the needle on a compass, haven't you? It's got a whole car to swing around in but it always wobbles back to the North.
- George Armstrong Custer: What are you driving at?
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Just this. I've always known where your sympathies lay, but it never affected our friendship and it never will. But it isn't our job to decide who's right and who's wrong about slavery anymore than it is John Brown's.
- George Armstrong Custer: I guess you're right, Jeb. I'm sorry.
- George Armstrong Custer: They're getting away.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: No, they're not. We're going after them!
- George Armstrong Custer: Hey, wait a minute. They outnumber us three to one.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Well, if it makes you nervous, don't count them. Come on.
- Windy Brody: I run into some of them abolitionists once; but, who's this feller John Brown they talk so much about?
- Tex Bell: Oh, as far as I know, he's just a dirty old windbag. In fact, he's just your type!
- Tex Bell: I'm sure glad we're leavin' civilization. It's getting too dangerous for a peace-lovin' man.
- Kit Carson Holliday: His reasons may be right, Jason. They may even be great and good reasons. But what your father is doing is wrong, terribly wrong. And he will keep on repeating that wrong as long as he lives.
- Windy Brody: That's the most doggone fun I've had since we got hemmed up with them Injuns.
- Tex Bell: Yeah, well, the next time we shoot at a common enemy, you let me do the shootin'.
- Jason Brown: He says he talks with God at night. But God doesn't tell people to kill one another, does He, Miss? He's a - he's a good man in a lot of ways.
- Kit Carson Holliday: Oh, Jeb, can't it be stopped now? Can't the slaves be free before it's too late?
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: It will be stopped - when we hang John Brown. Then the South can settle our own problem without loss of pride at being forced into it by a bunch of fanatics.
- Kit Carson Holliday: Oh, Jeb, what has pride got to do with human lives?
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: Kit, the two things kind of come together down South. We can't pry them apart. Not even with guns. I hope that's going to be the same way with us.
- [kiss]
- Tex Bell: What does bein' flat-footed got to do with ridin' a horse?
- Windy Brody: Callin' me a rumpot is what hurt me. I ain't had a drink since noon.
- Tex Bell: You still got that creepy feelin' about this place?
- Windy Brody: I don't know whether it's that or these here chiggers. But somethin's creepin' over me.
- John Brown: Fool. I'm not on trial, but the nation itself. Are you too stupid and blinded by a uniform to see what I see? A dark and evil curse laying all over this land. A carnal sin against God. It can only be wiped out in blood.
- Tex Bell: They sure give you a good lookin' over in this here man's town.
- Windy Brody: Yeah, I feel just like I was takin' a bath in a bath tub without no sides on it.
- Tex Bell: The only kind of a tub you ever was in.
- James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: The people of the Virginia have considered a resolution to abolish slavery for a long time. They sense that it's a moral wrong. And the rest of the South will follow Virginia's example. All I ask is time.
- John Brown: Time? Time? For 30 years, I waited for the South to cleanse it's soul of this crime. Since childhood I've been possessed with the fire of correcting this wrong. I tried peaceful agitation. As God as my witness, I tried. Peaceful means failed - long ago. Now I shall force a decision by bringing both side into armed conflict. Letters, words, talk, the time has ended for that! Strength and action are wanted now. Not a voice crying in the wilderness but a David armed with the power and the glory.
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