Two Flags West is a 1950 Western drama set during the American Civil War, directed by Robert Wise and starring Joseph Cotten, Jeff Chandler, Linda Darnell, and Cornel Wilde.

The opening credits contain the following statement: On December 8th, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Special Proclamation, whereby Confederate Prisoners of War might gain their freedom, provided they would join the Union Army to defend the frontier West against the Indians.

[1]Based on the historical service of "Galvanized Yankees", the film tells the story of a company of imprisoned Confederate Army cavalry troopers given such amnesty.

The company of Georgia veterans journeys to a remote New Mexico post commanded by an embittered, Southerner-hating major who expects them to desert at the first opportunity.

Sick and dying in deplorable conditions, they find a chance for survival when Union Captain Mark Bradford offers them release from "this stinking pesthole"[3] if they will join the Union Army to garrison a fort on the Western frontier, undermanned because its able-bodied regulars have been sent east, leaving only "greenhorns or casualties"[4] like Bradford to fight Indians.

Compassion for his men, and Bradford's sincerity, compel their reluctant commander, Col. Clay Tucker, to break the tie by agreeing to the conditions offered.

Tucker, now a lieutenant in the Union Army, dines with Kenniston, his widowed sister-in-law Elena and civilian guests, and is irritated by their patronising comments.

The local Tewa inhabitants agreed to use of their community, some of whose buildings dated back 400 years, when director Robert Wise promised that filming would remain clear of the tribal kiva (underground council room), cemetery, and sacred shrines.

During research Nugent consulted historians Dee Brown and Martin F. Schmitt, authors of Fighting Indians of the West, for sources of information about the use of "Galvanized Yankees",[8] and learned that Confederate plans to connect El Paso, Texas, with California were formulated in late 1864.

The historical Fort Thorn was built in December 1853 on the west bank of the Rio Grande, 45 miles (72 km) north of Las Cruces, New Mexico (near present-day Hatch) to defend local settlements against raids by Apache Indians, primarily those of the Mescalero band.

[11] In 1861 it was reoccupied as a forward outpost when the Civil War began and Texas organised an expeditionary force to seize New Mexico as part of its Arizona Territory.

Although Fort Thorn was probably not occupied after that time, the 5th Infantry remained in New Mexico throughout the Civil War, and in theory its forces could have been augmented by "Galvanized Yankees".

The 5th Georgia Cavalry was an actual unit of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee but saw service exclusively in the war's Western Theater, not with Jeb Stuart as depicted.

The only officer commissioned from the ranks of the "Galvanized Yankees" was John T. Shanks, born in Texas, who had been a supply captain of the Tennessee Volunteers captured with Morgan's Raiders.