Lieutenant Tom Cantrell is sent to defend Sergeant Braxton Rutledge, a Black cavalry soldier, on a charge of rape and murder. The story begins in a courtroom and it is told through flashbacks.

Respected black cavalry Sergeant Brax Rutledge stands court-martial for raping and killing a white woman and murdering her father, his superior officer.

Sergeant Rutled ge provides an extra plus factor in the form of an offbeat and intriguing screenplay which deals frankly, if not too deeply, with racial prejudice in the post-Civil War era.