Georgia Videographers Release Civil War Story on Video July 1

Georgia writer/historian Larry Stephens has teamed up with videographers and actors Nicholle Harrison, Terrell Shaw, Bill Supon and Richard Russell to produce "For Home and Country" which will be released July 1

With this being the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War in the Deep South, there are some real hidden gems being produced by independent filmmakers like Brian S. Armstrong of Exit Eleven Media, a small production company based in the Atlanta area. 

Armstrong has made several documentary films up in the Rome area over the past several years, but last summer, he and friend, Larry Stephens, tried their hand at shooting a one-hour docudrama on the Civil War. 

Loosely based on actual events that occurred in Randolph County, Alabama in the year, 1864, "FOR HOME AND COUNTRY" is the fictitious story of John Taylor, a middle-aged farmer who suddenly finds himself drafted against his will into the Confederate Army, even as the war begins to wind down. 

When Taylor receives a letter from his wife, apprising him of an outlaw gang terrorizing their neighborhood, he makes the fateful decision to desert the army just before the Battle of Jonesboro, Georgia. 

Taylor struggles to get back home to Randolph County before the outlaws can strike again.

Civil War buffs will find the film to be, for the most part, historically accurate.  Little has been written or produced in film about the "Back Country War" in which native Southerners were divided over which side to support. 

Throughout much of the Appalachian South, this was a recurring theme as mountain folk had little incentive to fight for a Confederate cause to which they could not relate.  Conversely, Confederate authorities were hard pressed to conscript as many able-bodied men as they could find into the army, and mountain men were targeted for military service as much as Southerners from the low country and Piedmont areas.  Hence, we can see the reason for the infighting among native Southerners that engulfed so many of the Hill Country.

"FOR HOME AND COUNTRY" was filmed over the course of the 2013 summer and features beautiful scenery from Floyd, Carroll, and Coweta Counties in Georgia, as well as Cleburne and Cherokee Counties, in Alabama.  The story is compelling, the acting believable, and with the right kind of marketing, this film could be a sleeper hit throughout the country at film festivals from coast-to-coast. 

To learn more about this film, visit www.forhomeandcountry.com.