you know and i must have miss something here because this story just do not make much sense . during the civil war and union colonel pembroke ( james coburn ) surrender his position at fort holman to rebel force and and once court martialed and make an offer to major charles ballard to take the fort back with a handful of men . when ask why he surrender in the first place and he state that it wasn not important and so we never do find out . huh . with five outlaw save from the gallows and and a soldier thrown in for good measure by the major and pembroke make his way back to fort holman and dangle a five hundred thousand dollar promise of hidden gold to his rag tag band . curiously and it seem to me that once the bullet start to fly and pembroke lose more men than he start out with and but then again and i wasn not count . in what look like the complete reverse of the situation at the end of butch cassidy and the sundance kid and it appear that pembroke bunch have the entire rebel garrison at holman surround and manage to destroy everything in sight while pick off a swarm of soldier who never seem to be seek cover from all the gunfire . holman commander and general ward ( telly savalas ) must have figure that be this close to the end of the flick and he might as well take pembroke sword to end it all . the set up seem to suggest that ward and pembroke be mortal enemy and but if they be and i be not go back to find out why . the print of the film i view probably do not help matter any and it be a cheap dvd i pick up for a buck and and be quite dark and muddy throughout . i will give credit though to pembroke military ally eli sampson ( bud spencer ) and he get an awful lot of mileage out of the old and hey the war be over gimmick . a for the half million in hidden gold nope and it never turn up .