When, in the film Shenandoah, Charlie Anderson gathers together his sons to strike out to find his youngest boy, who’s been taken prisoner by Union troops in the Civil War, his offspring challenge the wisdom of the venture. The film-maker does not answer the challenge, but simply puts into James Stewart’s mouth (besides a cigar) the words, “But you’ve gotta try. You’ve at least gotta try.” The venture cost him the lives of two of his other sons and a daughter-in-law.
There are no end of failings in humanity that one has no choice but to accept and to acquiesce in, and the prospects of our changing even one of them by so much as a whit lie close to, if not soundly on, zero. Any effort that I make to change anything will not, therefore, be predicated on the likelihood of my succeeding, but much rather on whether I, for myself, and for myself alone, tried.
The boy is played by Phillip Alford. It was his second, and last, feature film role, having debuted in To Kill A Mockingbird. Brilliant as he was, he decided instead to go into the construction trade.