Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

• Epoch Film Co.
• Henry B. Walthall
• Lillian Gish
• Miriam Cooper
• Mae Marsh
• Mary Alden
• Ralph Lewis
• George Siegmann
• Walter Long