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field-hands are too valuable an investment to mistreat severely. But, once handed over tothe sheriff, Samuel is hanged.The Confederate, Lee Travis, in Arizona Bushwhackers (1968), is let out of prison to helpclean up a western town, which has a crooked sheriff. 57 Travis takes advantage of the trustplaced in him by spying for the Confederacy. Even white women are no longer respectedas symbols of purity. In A Time for Killing (1967), the fiancee of a Union officer is takenhostage and raped by a Confederate captain. There is a similar occurrence in TheScavangers (1969) with both a white woman and her African American servant raped anda Union soldier tortured. A southern entrepreneur, in Gunfight in Abilene (1967) growsrich and powerful during the Civil War and ends up corruptly dominating his town andexpanding his influence through violence and by appointing and controlling the lawofficers. There are positive images of southerners but Hollywood continued to change itsformer pro-southern bias to a much more pro-North view of the Civil War. 58In this last cycle of Civil War films there are few northern villains. Apart from the bankerin Invitation to a Gunman, whose demise at the end of the film is welcomed by all thetownspeople, and a Union sergeant in Mosby's Marauders (1967) there are only twonorthern villains of consequence - in Rio Lobo (1970) and in The Beguiled (1970). TheBeguiled 59 is a Gothic black comedy in which a wounded Union soldier, McBurney, istaken in by a small private seminary for ladies, a 'mansion full of malignant magnolias,' 60in Louisiana, and nursed back to health. The film establishes a familiar theme - northernpower against southern ingenuity and determination. McBurney's relationship with each ofthe women and their response violates all the conventions that surrounded the southernview of the pure, inviolate woman. However he goes too far and the women poison him -but not before he has exposed the falseness of this Lost Cause myth. The only person toresist his charm and maintain her dignity throughout is Hallie, the African Americanhousekeeper who, in effect, organises the whole seminary. Unlike Mammy, in GWTW,Hallie confidently asserts that she doesn't like being a slave and ironically comments that'you white folks only killing each other 'cause you care about us niggers.' Civil War filmsrarely discussed the causes of the conflict or mentioned slavery. Now, like Benjie in TheMcMasters, African Americans could be assertive. Legislation and Black Power had giventhem confidence yet Nixon was actively slowing down school integration, agreeing withDaniel Moynihan that the 'issue of race could benefit from a period of benign neglect.' 61129