John Wayne and Harry Morgan as General Sherman and Grant in How The West Was Won
By
Guy Howie
Published 52 minutes ago
After joining ScreenRant in January 2025, Guy became a Senior Features Writer in March of the same year, and now specializes in features about classic TV shows. With several years' experience writing for and editing TV, film and music publications, his areas of expertise include a wide range of genres, from comedies, animated series, and crime dramas, to Westerns and political thrillers.
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While John Wayne starred in over 80 different Western movies, his sole acting performance in a TV Western came in a 1960 episode of the hit show Wagon Train. The Duke had apparently been lined up for the role of Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke five years earlier, only to pass the part onto his friend James Arness instead.
As a result, despite several decades of John Wayne movies, the actor never played any substantial role in a TV series, even though small-screen Westerns became some of the hottest tickets in television from the late 1950s onwards. Instead, he remained a standard bearer for Hollywood’s Golden Age on the big screen.
Yet, his solitary performance in a TV Western would prefigure Wayne’s role in a John Ford Western movie just two years later, demonstrating that there wasn’t such an unbridgeable divide between big and small-screen renderings of the genre after all. The Duke may have been a film actor, but he wasn’t averse to a television cameo when it suited him.
John Wayne’s 1960 Cameo In Wagon Train Was His Only Acting Role In A Western TV Show
John Wayne leans against saloon doors while smoking in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
John Wayne’s Wagon Train cameo occurred during an episode entitled "The Colter Craven Story", which first aired on NBC in November 1960. His involvement in the show was kept a closely guarded secret, to the extent that we don’t even see his face in the episode.
However, anyone remotely familiar with the Duke’s most famous roles on the big screen would have immediately recognized his voice during the scene in question. His moment came in the penultimate chapter of this hour-long Wagon Train special, when his character suddenly arrived on a Civil War battlefield to report news to General Ulysses “Sam” Grant.
Wayne Played General William Tecumseh Sherman In Wagon Train
John Wayne's secret cameo as General Sherman in Wagon Train.
Sam, played by Paul Birch, happened to be talking to Ward Bond’s protagonist Seth Adams as Wayne’s character interjected. "Sam, Buell's up. Means we can resume fighting in the morning," he told them. The character he was playing was General William Tecumseh Sherman, “Sam” Grant’s fellow leader of the Union Army in the American Civil War.
The Duke’s acting cameo would have been impossible to spot, were it not for the distinctive drawl of his vocal delivery, because Sherman’s back was turned to the camera throughout the scene. But two years after this Wagon Train cameo, we’d see John Wayne playing General Sherman much more clearly, during a major big-screen release.
The Movie How The West Was Won Saw Wayne Reprise His Wagon Train Role
John Wayne smokes a cigar in How the West Was Won.
How the West Was Won starred John Wayne alongside James Stewart, as well as a host of other Hollywood A-listers. It was the second time Wayne and Stewart had featured together in a John Ford movie in 1962 alone, following their collaboration on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Wayne reprised his Wagon Train role as General Sherman, in a scene with Harry Morgan playing Ulysses S. Grant. In it, the Duke’s character persuaded Grant not to resign following the Battle of Shiloh, which proved to be a major turning point in the American Civil War.
Although Wayne’s role in How the West Was Won lasted only a couple of minutes, it brought much-needed gravitas to the depiction of a major moment in U.S. history. As well as his performance fit the story, though, it surely must have been Wagon Train that gave Ford the idea of casting Wayne in this part.
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Like Follow Followed Wagon Train TV-PG Western 10/10 Release Date 1957 - 1965-00-00Cast
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Frank McGrath
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Terry Wilson
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Like Follow Followed How the West Was Won G Western Adventure War 7.3/10 Release Date November 1, 1962 Runtime 164 MinutesCast
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James Stewart
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John Wayne
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Wagon Train
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How the West Was Won
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