The Rebel: Johnny Yuma at Appomattox

The author of the television series The Rebel presents his character, Johnny Yuma, in an original stage adaptation placing him in the thick of the action at a pivotal point in history. The final battle has been fought and lost. General Robert E. Lee is about to surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865. But Johnny Yuma has a plan. If he assassinates Grant, if a Southerner kills Grant, the South will go on fighting—and the North, without their great general, will lose. Yuma knows that Grant will humiliate Lee during the surrender. From the attic, Yuma has a bead on Grant, and he takes dead aim. Fenady, who wrote the lyrics to the song "The Rebel" made famous by Johnny Cash, has used Lee's and Grant's actual words in the play's reenactment.