Dan plot
Dan, a faithful servant to Colonel Dabney's family, is happy when the Dabney children, Raoul and Grace, now adults, find love by becoming engaged to Elsie and John Hammond, respectively, from the North. However, when war breaks out, the two Hammonds return to the North, where John becomes a lieutenant in the Union army. Raoul, his future brother-in-law, in turn becomes a lieutenant in the Confederate army. When the Union army arrives near the plantation, John takes the opportunity to visit Grace. But when he arrives at the house, he finds Jonas Watts, the old plantation overseer and now a Confederate soldier, attacking Grace.