The Battle of Bull Run
Directed by Francis FordAt the time the play opens the .Southern army is harassing the Unionists. The Northern spy force is augmented and Grace, whose brother, Harry, is already in the secret service, joins it. She meets Harry and together they take a coach to the Southern town they have selected to spy upon. A prominent colonel in the Southern army deals with dispatches, and it is this man that Grace investigates while Harry awaits events. The colonel has a sweetheart, May, and Grace manages to got an introduction to her at a ball by purposely tearing her dress and appealing to May for help. This leads to an acquaintance with the Colonel, and she practices all her woman's wiles and fascinations upon him and he is impressed with her. Grace learns that important dispatches are to be forwarded and plots to get into the colonel's house. She manages matters cleverly, and contrives to have her carriage break down before his residence. The colonel endeavors to get rid of her, but she stalls him off until the arrival of May, when he has to hide her in the next room. May comes to warn him about Grace, for she is suspicious and her woman's intuition tells her that Grace is there for no good. The colonel tries to defend Grace, who gets a chance to change the dispatches for false ones, but drops a letter by mistake, and escapes by way of the window, giving the dispatches to her brother. May sees the letter of commendation from the North. A servant has seen Harry. The colonel rides off after him. He catches up with him as they ride into the battlefield, and in a hand-to-hand duel Harry is killed by the colonel, who is himself mortally wounded by a stray bullet. Grace returns to Washington and receives compliments and rewards. She returns to her home with a clouded conscience, and while sitting looking at her reward, the specters of Harry and the colonel appear and beckon her. She is forced to go with them, and together they appear on the battlefield and they show her their own bodies, and slowly they fade away and their specters enter their dead bodies. She comes to and staggers to the stairs to get assistance. She faints and falls down the stairway and dies.
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