OK, it’s late and I have to go to work in the morning, so I’m going to bed. I’ve read the comments on IMDB, but I want to know how the movies ends. Please spoil it for me.
What I do know is: He IS an imposter (1 reason: his feet shrunk 2 sizes)
What I gather is that he’s a great guy who falls in love with Jodi Foster. Apparently he then gets charged with murder and can either admit to being an imposter and go free, or continue his love for Jodi Foster and hang as a result. I’m also guessing he hangs.
Just as you say, he’s an imposter. Jodi Foster keeps his secret until a trial, for a crime committed before the by the real Sommersby. He’s helped to bring back the family farm as well as the farming community nearby. If he reveals himself as an imposter, it’ll all go to ruin, plus Jodi Foster will be labeled a loose woman who slept with someone not her husband. At the trial, Jodi, who’s fallen in love with him, tries to tell the truth, but he tells the judge she’d say anything to free him. So he goes to the gallows and is killed for crimes committed by another man. “It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done…” Wait - that’s a different story.
He’s a coward and a scumbag who survived the War but hiding during a battle. When he takes on Summersby’s life, he does good and honorable things for the first time ever. If he admits to being a fraud, all of the good that he did will get undone. If he keeps the secret, he dies. So he dies with honor like he should have done in the first place during the War.