A John Ford Film How the West Was Won," the Civil War A story of four generations of a pioneer family of New England farmers as they made their way west in the l840s, Describes the hard life and times of the Prescott's family across the continent and their fortune to the western shore after years of hardship, loss, love, war, danger and romance. The story touched all the bases: like runaway wagon trains a Indians stampeding Buffalo's; confused and erratic river rapids; the grandeur of Monument Valley, Utah; the rocky mountains the Black Hills of South Dakota; the clamor of gold in St. Louis the Cheyenne attack the Pony Express the overland telegraph; the coming of the steel roadway of the iron horse the bloody battle between cattlemen and homesteaders.