Fred Martin is a Southern spy. A northern dispatch bearer is captured, the signature to his messages is forged, and Martin is sent on the dangerous mission of luring the Northern troops into an ambush. He accomplishes this and a terrible battle results, in which the Federals are driven back. The work of Martin is so damaging to the North that plans are laid for his capture, and John Bruce, a secret service man, is assigned to the task.

Bob Evans, a telegraph operator, together with a group of soldiers gets ambushed by Sioux Indians. Wounded, he climbs into a telegraph pole and asks through the telegraph wires for help from the fort. Bob's fiancée Edith comes along with the soldiers. The soldiers find only dead bodies and decide to chase the Indians. Edith stays behind to search for Bob. She finds him and together they return to the fort. The Sioux then attack the fort, but when the situation seems hopeless, the army returns and the Indians are expelled.

Showing the trail of civilization across the western country, the emigrant train, the Cooper family, the treachery of the Indians, the capture of Helen Cooper and the daring attempt to rescue her, resulting in his capture and being made to run the gauntlet and forced to undergo torture by the squaws. Thrilling rescue of the prisoners from the Indian camp, sensational battle, as the emigrants swoop down on the redskins, wonderful acting by star artists in the leading parts, massive and colossal cast, amazing in grandeur and magnificence, stages in scenes of wild and wondrous beauty.

A loutish husband neglects his patient, loving wife to enjoy a night on the town. When he comes home drunk and irritable, he mistreats her. Then he falls asleep, and has a dream that causes him to reconsider the way that he treats his wife.

A troubled young woman comes to live with her estranged father on the New York waterfront. A tough sailor falls in love with her, sparking conflict between her father and her suitor. What neither knows is that she has a secret that could cause her to lose both of them.

The U.S. Army and the Indians sign a peace treaty. However, a group of surveyors trespass on the Indians' land and violate the treaty. The army refuses to listen to the Indians' complaints, and the surveyors are killed by the Indians. A vicious Indian war ensues, culminating in an Indian attack on an army fort.

When the Civil War begins, young Billy runs away from home to enlist in the Northern Army as a drummer; he's wounded in battle and taken prisoner. He manages to escape and deliver an important message to his commanding officer, but loses his life in the process. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.