The Outlaw Josey Wales /

The Outlaw Josey Wales is a 1976 American revisionist Western film set after the end of the American Civil War. It was directed by and starred Clint Eastwood (as the eponymous Josey Wales), with Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, Sam Bottoms, and Geraldine Keams. The film was adapted by Sonia Chernus and Philip Kaufman from the novel The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (republished in 1975 as Gone to Texas) by Forrest Carter. In 1996, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Josey Wales, a peaceful Missouri farmer, is driven to revenge by the brutal murder of his wife and son by a band of pro-Union Jayhawkers — Senator James H. Lane's Redlegs from Kansas. Wales joins a group of pro-Confederate Missouri guerrillas (bushwhackers or "border ruffians") led by William T. Anderson. At the conclusion of the war, Captain Fletcher persuades the guerrillas to surrender, saying they have been granted amnesty. Josey Wales, still holding a grudge, refuses to surrender. As a result, he survives the massacre of the men by Captain Terrill's Redlegs, who've now joined the Union Army.