Drums in the Deep South

4/12/2026

**_A suicidal Confederate mission to stop Sherman’s supply line_** This is a surprisingly good Civil War movie starring James Craig, Barbara Payton and Guy Madison, shot eight years before the similar John Ford/John Wayne “The Horse Soldiers.” While the geography is disingenuous, being shot in central California east of Stockton, the widespan topography isn’t the focus, but rather the characters and their immediate background, such as the antebellum manor, the trees and the caves. You can only see the distant geography in the train sequence, which is relatively late in the film. Although the story is fictitious, there were Confederate missions to destroy Sherman’s supply line to stop his taking Atlanta, such as the endeavors of cavalry leader Joseph Wheeler. There was no Devils Mount