The film consists of two parts of similar length . The first part closes with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln , after which there is an intermission . At the New York premiere , Dixon spoke on stage between the parts , reminding the audience that the dramatic version of '' The Clansman '' appeared in that venue nine years previously . " Mr. Dixon also observed that he would have allowed none but the son of a Confederate soldier to direct the film version of '' The Clansman . '' " The film follows two juxtaposed families . One is the Northern Stonemans : abolitionist U.S. Representative Austin Stoneman ( based on the Reconstruction-era Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania ) , his daughter , and two sons . The other is the Southern Camerons : Dr. Cameron , his wife , their three sons and two daughters . Phil , the elder Stoneman son , falls in love with Margaret Cameron , during the brothers ' visit to the Cameron estate in South Carolina , representing the Old South . Meanwhile , young Ben Cameron idolizes a picture of Elsie Stoneman . When the Civil War arrives , the young men of both families enlist in their respective armies . The younger Stoneman and two of the Cameron brothers are killed in combat . Meanwhile , the Cameron women are rescued by Confederate soldiers who rout a black militia , after an attack on the Cameron home . Ben Cameron leads a heroic charge at the Siege of Petersburg , earning the nickname of " the Little Colonel " , but he is also wounded and captured . He is then taken to a Union hospital in Washington , D.C . During his stay at the hospital , he is told that he will be hanged . Also at the hospital , he meets Elsie Stoneman , whose picture he has been carrying ; she is working there as a nurse . Elsie takes Cameron 's mother , who had traveled to Washington to tend her son , to see Abraham Lincoln , and Mrs. Cameron persuades the President to pardon Ben . When Lincoln is assassinated at Ford 's Theatre , his conciliatory postwar policy expires with him . In the wake of the president 's death , Austin Stoneman and other Radical Republicans are determined to punish the South , employing harsh measures that Griffith depicts as having been typical of the Reconstruction Era
Lincoln is assassinated
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
The Birth of a Nation