The Warrens of Virginia

   William C. deMille had his greatest playwriting success with this four-act romantic Civil War melodrama produced by David Belasco. It opened at the Belasco Theatre on 3 December 1907 for 190 performances with Charles D. Waldron as the Union Army's Lieutenant Burton, who visits his Southern fiancée, Agatha Warren, behind enemy lines. Burton is carrying fake Northern battle plans that, as he plans, fall into Confederate hands and allow the Northern army to defeat forces led by Agatha's father, General Warren. She is hurt by Burton's subterfuge and although the play ends without an obvious reconciliation, there are hints that Burton and Agatha will patch up their differences at the war's imminent end. Cecil B. DeMille directed a 1915 silent motion picture of his brother's play, and it was remade in 1924.