That Lee Wilson would star in a movie about the notorious Civil War general Earl Van Dorn was somewhat fated.
The actor was scouted to play the lead role by the producers of a local play about Van Dorn’s life and death in Spring Hill.
Wilson was told he bears a striking resemblance to the blonde-haired and blue-eyed Confederate general. At first, he was resistant to diving into the Van Dorn lore, but during his five years playing the part, he became an aficionado himself.
“He's like an onion — just so many layers,” Wilson tells Williamson Scene. “I don't know how one man could have as many adventures as he had.”
In August, a film he wrote and starred in, "The Legend of Van Dorn," premiered on Amazon Prime Video. Much of it was filmed in Columbia, Tennessee, as well as in Spring Hill. There’s still a bloodstain on the floor in the Martin Cheairs House, also known as Ferguson Hall, from when Van Dorn was killed by Dr. George Peters, who claimed the general had an affair with his wife.
The film follows Van Dorn’s final year of life, but Wilson notes that Van Dorn lived every day like it was his last — which is perhaps why he was reckless in his work as a general and in his personal life.
“This guy was on a different level as far as bravery and not fearing death,” Wilson said. “In his mind, he could die any day, maybe tomorrow. So why hold back?”
The film also follows Van Dorn’s affair with Jesse Peters, who is portrayed by actress Ellie Patrikios. Van Dorn was coined the “terror of ugly husbands” by a newspaper reporter at the time. Though he was a “pirate, womanizer and a drunk” Wilson notes, he sought to make him more human than a caricature.
“This role was probably the most difficult because I couldn't play him as a good guy or bad guy,” Wilson said. “He's not a hero. He's not a villain. He's this deeply flawed person who probably thought that he was doing the right thing, and made excuses for his actions, like we all do. A lot of times, even the people who do bad things, they see themselves as the good guy, and I think he saw himself as the good guy.”
During the Civil War, Van Dorn followed up losses at the battles of Pea Ridge and Corinth with a Confederate victory at the Battle of Thompson's Station and a successful surprise cavalry raid against General Ulysses S. Grant in Holly Springs shortly before his death. Many have theories about the circumstances surrounding his death, chiefly that a Union spy was involved — which is explored in Wilson’s film.
Wilson asserts that the Civil War was less about slavery, but about the protection of land in the South. He also believes few Southerners held slaves. Enslaved people in the antebellum South made up about one-third of the southern population, and about 25 percent of people owned other people.
“We really wanted to be a fly on the wall,” he said. “If you were there, they would be living their lives. It wouldn't be an educational moment. It wouldn't be something where everything was tied up with a neat bow and all the political statements or philosophical statements were made. We're just seeing these people who are in the middle of a horrible time in our history, where we were fighting ourselves.”