Introduction

The Raid is a 1954 Technicolor American film set during the American Civil War.

It stars Van Heflin, Anne Bancroft, Richard Boone and Lee Marvin. It is loosely based on a true incident, the St. Albans Raid, as well as the book by Herbert Ravenal Sass.

However the film made a significant change, turning the raid into an act of revenge for William Tecumseh Sherman’s burning of Atlanta.

Outline

In 1864 a group of Confederate prisoners held in a Union prison stockade at Plattsburg, New York, not many miles from the Canada–US border, escape. They head for Montreal, Canada and then plan a raid across the border into St. Albans, Vermont, to rob its banks to replenish the Confederate treasury and burn buildings as revenge for Sherman’s March to the Sea and to tie up Union forces.

The leader of the raid, Major Neal Benton (Van Heflin), heads into St. Albans as a spy, and develops ambiguous feelings about what he is doing when he becomes friends with a young war widow and her friendly son, who he boards with, masquerading as a Canadian businessman.

Other raiders stay in an abandoned barn, or pose as traveling street peddlers. One drunken member interrupts a church service, and is promptly shot dead by Benton, the raid leader, almost giving away the plot. The townspeople shower Benton with gratitude for this, not realising his true identity.

On the appointed day, Major Benton in town, and the other raiders at the barn, all don Confederate uniforms, take some citizens hostage, rob the bank’s strongbox at gunpoint, burn down the town hall, and gallop north just ahead of an arriving Union force.

Burning a bridge behind them, they barely elude the Union forces, and make a successful getaway to nearby Canada.

Film Inspiration

Inspired by true events and the 1948 book, Affairs at St. Albans, by Herbert Ravenel Sass. Book summary:

“How a handful of Johnny Rebs, with the aid of a girl spy, took a small Vermont town in one of the most daring — and least known — coups of the Civil War.“

Production & Filming Details

• Directors: Hugo Fregonese.
• Producer: Robert L. Jacks.
• Writer: Francis Cockrell (story) and Sydney Boehm (screenplay).
• Music: Roy Webb.
• Cinematography: Lucien Ballard.
• Editor: Robert Golden.
• Production: Panoramic Productions.
• Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox.
• Release Date: 04 August 1954 (US).
• Running Time: 83 minutes.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.

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