Scene Directed by Jim Choate and George Roland Wills, as was the BOWYER SAVES AVENEL Scene… Written by George Roland WIlls, Produced by Confederate Pictures Reenactment Films. Captain Jimmie Breckinridge is played by Jim Choate, who was General Bernard Elliot Bee in GODS AND GENERALS and who provided the land and the horses and his services to make the picture. Thanks, Jim! Also thanks to my friend Kathryn Coombs for providing the civilian attire, and her assistance in manning the cameras during the filming of this sequence. Kathyrn has worked professionally with the Smithsonian and other documentary and Civil War films, as has Jim, who has done History channel work as Sir Isaac Newton and was Robert E. Lee’s stunt double in the History Channel’s “APRIL 1865″. A film made in 2005 at Historic Avenel House in Bedford, Virginia. The story is loosely based upon the lives of the Burwell family, and this scene depicts Captain Jimmie Breckinridge’s suicide at the Battle of Dinwiddie Courthouse in April of 1865. The presence of Captain Beauregard with him is symbolic. Captain Beauregard is THE SOUTH, itself, and the South did in fact die with Breckinridge that month, on April 9, at Appomattox. Breckinridge’s association with the South died at Dinwiddie Courthouse. Here, in this scene, both the South and Breckinridge decide to fight it out to the bitter end, knowing full well the outcome in advance, and accepting that, in their combined suicides.

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