The March — Day 24

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Logline 1:  Cold Mountain + Misery  (+ 50 Shades of Grey)

Plot: It is November 1864 and the civil war rages. Atlanta has just fallen, and General Sherman and his Northern army have begun their march to the sea. As a military maneuver, it is unprecedented. Sherman's army operates deep in enemy territory, foraging for their food as they go rather than relying upon supply lines from the North, and causing as much wanton destruction as possible in the process. Their goal is simple and brutal: to punish the South and make the continuation of war so costly to the Southern civilian populace that the Confederacy is forced to surrender. It a new birth for Total War.

Corporal Clinton Meacham is a Union forager and forward scout. Advancing ahead of Sherman's army, he is the eyes, ears and finder-of-provisions that help guide the rolling destruction. One day, deep in back-country Georgia, his unit is ambushed by Confederate guerrillas. Most of his men are killed in the ambush, and Meacham is severely wounded, rolling down an embankment into a marsh. The sole survivor of the unit sees Meacham fall, and retreats, reporting back to his superiors that Meacham and the rest of the unit have all been wiped out.

But Meacham isn't dead yet. The rebels come across him unconscious and bleeding out. Rather than kill him, they decide to take him hostage to see if he has any useful intelligence to give up before he dies. Unclear about how wide a front Sherman's approaching army will present, the men wrack their brains. If their county and all of the surrounding counties are soon to be saturated with Union soldiers fully engaged in ransacking, it will be difficult to hide a wounded Union soldier somewhere that he won't quickly be found. And they may not even be able to move quickly enough with the body to avoid being overrun.

Then one of them strikes upon a brilliant idea. They will take him to the house of Lem and Sarah Cooper. The Cooper house is just a few miles away, and directly in the path of the approaching army, but it is further into the marsh and away from most of the orchards and livestock where the Union soldiers are likely to focus most of their foraging energy. With good luck, in a few days, the Union army will pass through the county and the men will return for their prize, assuming he has survived.

There is a hitch though. Lem Cooper is serving with Confederate regular forces near Savannah, leaving Sarah alone to tend their property. Though Sarah is well know to the men as a true daughter of the South, the last 2 years with her husband away and in constant danger have taken their toll on Mrs. Cooper. Will she be up to looking after a dying enemy prisoner by herself? The men have no other options. They quickly set out with Meacham in a makeshift stretcher and make it to the Cooper house by late afternoon. Sarah greets them, listens to their plan, and without protest or elaboration, accepts the difficult task. The men tie Meacham to a bed, in case he should wake up, and head off to harass the approaching Union soldiers. The plan to draw the advance units away from the Cooper property, if possible, and promise to return as soon as the Union forces have passed, hopefully not more than a week. Then they depart.

Sarah spends the first night sitting in a chair, watching Meacham as he dies. The following morning, she stands and begins to treat him. By the second day she has wrapped his wounds and Meacham's condition seems to stabilize. And then, on the the morning of the third day, Meacham wakes up. The first thing he sees is Sarah. She is stunning. Though they are enemies, and he is her prisoner, there is clearly a strong attraction between them.

So begins a tortured dance of hatred and lust between Meacham and Sarah. The first phase of their relationship is one of cold inquiry and curiosity. Each tries to conceal their attraction and instead focuses on the roles they are trapped in, that of captor and prisoner. Each night is filled with high tension as the sounds and devastation of the foraging Union army fill the air around the Cooper property.

Meacham and Sarah's relationship enters it's second phase in the middle of the second week, when two of the rebels return, bloody and bruised. The rest of their comrades have been killed in skirmishes, but the rebels believe the bulk of the Union army has passed. They are back to take possession of their prisoner. Sarah seems cordial at first, until she draws down on the two men with a rifle. She will be keeping the prisoner until he is completely healed. And perhaps, she suggests, as a bargaining chip to trade should her own husband be captured by the enemy, as Sherman's army is now heading directly towards Lem Cooper's division in Eastern Georgia. The 2 rebels are besides themselves, and incensed. But for now they decide they would rather let this crazy lady have her way and keep their lives. They depart with a threat to return again, on less bargaining terms.

And so the second phase of their relationship begins with Meacham hopeful that Sarah's actions mean she has begun to sincerely care for him. And indeed, it seems that she might—as the sexual tension now becomes action, and Sarah begins to take liberties with her bound prisoner. But as Sarah's passion for her captive rises, so too does her willingness to inflict pain upon him. Here, trapped in her home, is a flesh-and-blood avatar for the privations she and the South have suffered. Here, also, is a man that belongs to her as surely as a slave. A man who is more or less directly responsible for taking her husband away from her the last 2 years. Slowly, Meacham starts to understand that his captor is not as in control or stable as she first seemed. Though intoxicated by the chemistry and sexual interaction growing between them, Meacham starts to fear that Sarah might actually kill him if he isn't careful. Meacham decides to try and escape. He does so one night, and Sarah runs after him, only to discover that Meacham has been caught by a group of rebel soldiers, including the 2 guerrillas who had promised to return.

The rebels tell Sarah that they were heading to the Cooper house to collect their prisoner, by force, if necessary, but they also seem strangely respectful. The soldiers ask if they might all return to the Cooper house for a night before they move on in the AM. She agrees. When they arrive at the Cooper house, one of the rebels tells Sarah the other reason they've come. They've received word that her husband was killed by Sherman's forces just outside of Savannah. He was burned alive, so there will be no body to return to her. Sarah seems to be in complete shock. The men sit her down, settle in for the evening, and wait for the outburst they know must soon come.

In the middle of the night, Sarah knocks out the guard and Meacham, and drags Meacham out of the house. She bars the door, and sets her own house on fire, killing all of the screaming confederate soldiers inside and burning her home to the ground. Sarah is now completely mad. Act III, and the third phase of Meacham and Sarah's relationship, takes place in the barn on the Cooper property, where the two adversary / lovers live out their final act.

Can Meacham escape? Does he even want to? Will Sarah set him free? Will the two lovers have to kill each other to be free, or might they (and their connection) both survive the madness and war consuming them? Whoever lives and whoever dies, the tragedy of these two lovers is almost certainly inescapable.