I wouldn’t call them soldiers. They were criminals and horse thieves.
Grandpa Simpson, “We had a name for cowards durin’ the war between the States! We called 'em, Kentuckians!”
By modern standards the US civil war was more like the conflicts in Syria or (on a smaller scale) Ukraine. Often very difficult to tell the difference between the groups you mention.
(It’s just as well that during the US civil war there wasn’t a vastly bigger nation state around to decide that the US government was a threat to its regional interests, and so sponsor the Confederates.)
The Confederacy was jonesing for that sweet sweet maple syrup.
Aside from the Midwest where the Civil War was a guerilla war, the majority of the conflict was closer in organization to the Yugoslav war than Syria. Both sides had clear territorial demarcations, uniforms, governments, and fought conventional battles. The Emancipation Proclamation announced after the Battle of Antietam was meant to keep European powers out of the conflict (as the slave trade was abolished in the UK and enforced by the British Navy).
In Syria you have a hodgepodge of different factions who have changed allegiances, a government carrying out a scorched earth campaign and an outside group playing at being warlords. A close parallel to that would be the Lebanese Civil War.
Not far from my home:
“The Raid” 1954, Van Heflin and Lee Marvin
Sure taught them Yankees a lesson they never forgot…
…Well, a few of them anyway.
Oooh I love early Lee Marvin!
Van Heflin is one of the all around, “that guys” of Golden Age Hollywood.
I thought for years that Van Heflin played the guy who brought a harpoon to a gunfight, but it turns out that was the equally dependable Sterling Hayden (who, looking at his Wikipedia page, had a pretty interesting life).
Oh yes Sterling Hayden!
He was in so many of my favorite films (Asphalt Jungle, Dr. Strangelove, The Godfather, The Long Goodbye)
My favorite part of the wikipedia page:
“Hayden often professed distaste for film acting, saying he did it mainly to pay for his ships and voyages”
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