In the film, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, reminds that the world goes on and leaves us behind as relics of a bye-gone age little remembered as the world revolves from night today from one year to the next.

In She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, the second of John Ford’s Cavalry trilogy, after an Indian raid, they found Trooper John Smith dying. The score “Dixy Land” begins to play, and we get the sense there is more to this man than just being a red shirt in a cavalry film. When he dies from his wounds, they gave him a military funeral, a sign of respect from his commanding officer, Captain Nathan Brittles. They commend his body to the ground, not as US trooper John Smith, but as Rome Clay, late Brigadier General Confarreate Army. Brittles calls him “A gallant Soldiers and a Christian gentleman.” The Confederate flag too is laid to rest with him as “Taps” plays.

After the Civil War ended, the tension between the states remained. In this film, Ford boldly honors the men who fought for the South and the Union. Even today, this is highly controversial. The Confederate flag has become a symbol of bigotry. In its time, it was one of rebellion. From the Confederacy’s point of view, it was the symbol of resistance against tyranny. In the South, they saw the over-reach and rapid centralization of the Federal government as the same tyranny the British once imposed on the American colonies.

Ford was a private, and often tight-lipped man, but he spoke through his films. In a film celebrating the heroism of the US Cavalry, he also acknowledged the heroism of men who fought against the US government and lost. Trooper John Smith, once Brigadier General Rome Clay, accepted defeat and found a place in the new world, where he started his life over in the same line of work. It was that or let the world move on without him, remaining stuck in the past and clinging to a vision of a world that would never be.