The Passersby

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"The Passersby" is the 69th episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Opening narration[]

As the episode starts, a group of Civil War soldiers are walking down a road as Rod Serling narrates:

This road is the afterwards of the Civil War. It began at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and ended at a place called Appomattox. It's littered with the residue of broken battles and shattered dreams.

After a brief opening dialogue between the Sergeant and Lavinia Godwin, Rod Serling resumes:

In just a moment, you will enter a strange province that knows neither North nor South, a place we call—The Twilight Zone.

Plot[]

At the end of the Civil War, a Confederate Army Sergeant (James Gregory), wounded in battle, walks down a road aided by a wooden crutch. He carries with him a dirty bed roll and a homemade guitar. The limping Sergeant comes across a ruined antebellum mansion which belongs to Lavinia Godwin (Joanne Linville), a Southern belle whose husband was killed in the war and whose bitterness towards the Union Army still survives.

The Sergeant receives permission from Lavinia to refresh himself at the well, and then to sit on a bench under a dead tree in her front yard. He plays his guitar, singing the folk song Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair. Lavinia recognizes the tune as one that her husband used to sing. The two watch as a steady stream of soldiers belonging to both the Union and the Confederacy pass by the house and continue down the road. The Sergeant learns Lavinia has been very ill, and that her husband was a Confederate Captain killed in battle. As they reminisce, the dark silhouette of a Union Lieutenant on horseback stops by the home to ask for a drink of water. The Sergeant recognizes him as the man that saved his life by stopping the bleeding when his foot was dismembered earlier in the war. Lavinia, meanwhile, rushes into the house to retrieve an old shotgun and fires at the Lieutenant in recompense for the death of her husband. The shotgun blast simply passes through him and he remarks that nothing matters anymore. The Sergeant gives him a drink from the well and the Union soldier continues on his way.

The night passes and the Sergeant begins to understand that this is not a normal road and these are not ordinary wounded soldiers. He tells Lavinia that in the early morning hours of dawn he realized there is something at the end of the road he has to find. As the Sergeant turns to leave, Lavinia moves in front of him and tries to persuade him to stay. In the background they hear a man's voice singing the same folk song the Sergeant had played earlier on his guitar − Lavinia's husband, Jud. Jud reveals to Lavinia that everyone on the road is indeed dead, including her. She passed from the typhoid fever from which she thought she had recovered and he from a Yankee bullet. The Sergeant, understanding Jud's words, sighs and begins to walk down the road, but Lavinia refuses to believe him. Jud tells her that there is nothing left for him in that house. Insisting that she is alive, Lavinia pleads with her husband to stay. Jud refuses and continues his journey, disregarding his wife's pleas but reassuring her that he will wait for her at the end of the road.

Lavinia then hears a soft voice comforting her – a lone passerby who turns out to be Abraham Lincoln, the last casualty of the Civil War. Standing alone as the final man on the road, Lincoln quotes a line from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

Julius Caesar, Act 5, Scene 2, 4–8^[1]

Frightened, Lavinia backs away, but accepts her fate and runs to join her husband, disappearing into the mist.

Closing narration[]

Incident on a dirt road during the month of April, the year 1865. As we've already pointed out, it's a road that won't be found on a map, but it's one of many that lead in and out of the Twilight Zone.

Cast[]

• James Gregory as The Sergeant
• Joanne Linville as Lavinia Godwin
• as Jud Godwin
• as Charlie Constable
• as Union Lieutenant
• as Abraham Lincoln
• Jamie Farr as Soldier (uncredited)

Episode notes[]

The traditional folk song "Black Is the Color (Of My True Love's Hair)" is featured prominently throughout this episode.

Elements of the episode are re-made in an episode of the 2002 revival named, "Homecoming". In this episode, a soldier returns from Iraq to repair his relationship with his son. We find out that the soldier is dead.

The closing titles image is of the road upon which the eponymous passersby walk.

The radio adaptation of this episode starred Morgan Brittany as Lavinia.

References[]

• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links[]

• "The Passersby" at IMDb