Santa Fe Trail
1940
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.
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!
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.
John Brown: I have given you fair warning. You can keep your heads or lose 'em as you wish.
James Ewell Brown 'Jeb' Stuart: What do you do on Saturday night for fun here? Kit Carson Holliday: Well, as I remember, half of Leavenworth takes a bath and the other half gets drunk. And since there are only two bathtubs in town, things get kind of exciting around midnight.
Caption: The road to Santa Fe was on iron rails to Kansas... and pure nerve from there on.
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."
Cowboy: Kansas is all right for men and dogs, but it's pretty hard on women and horses.
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: Wipe out those fools at the foot of the hill!