Based on characters from Joseph Horn's feature screenplay "The Deserters," "The Volunteers" tells the story of Marie Chestnut and her family.
Close knit and college educated, the Chestnuts don't adhere to the Southern stereotype, but they do resemble many families from the upper South who lost everything to a war they didn't believe in. When violence breaks out with the North, Marie's father feels it's his duty to enlist and serve his country. Not long after the news of his death reaches the farm, her two brothers are conscripted into military service.
Now Marie faces a choice: to let "old fat men on their plantations" decide her family's fate, or to take matters into her own hands.
