Donald Allen

Connecticut, 1863. Union soldier Cyrus Task (Warren Oates), has returned from The War Between the States to his farm after losing his leg to a Rebel bullet. His wife (Nellie Bellflower), a devoutly religious woman, is scornful of Cyrus' phoney boasting about his brief war exploits, but is unable to deal with the knowledge that Cyrus has given her a sexually transmitted disease ("Cupid's itch," as the doctor calls it). Humiliated before God, she commits suicide by drowning herself in the farm's pond. Cyrus, at a loss how to raise his infant son, Adam, remarries and has another son, Charles…..