ANNIVERSARY: Field of Lost Shoes (2014)

 

                    Today is the anniversary of the Battle of New Market in 1864.  This Civil War battle is best known for the involvement of cadets from the Virginia Military Institute.  In 2014, a movie was released that was based on the VMI participation.  That participation is known as the “Field of Lost Shoes”.  The movie was directed by Sean McNamara.  He has been mainly associated with pre-teen movies like “Bratz”.  This time he had a nice cast to work with, including Nolan Gould, Lauren Holly, Jason Isaacs, Tom Skerritt, Keith David, and David Arquette.  The movie was filmed in Virginia, including Virginia Military Institute.  Most of the cadet characters are based on real people. 

                    The movie starts at modern-day VMI.  The college annually holds a parade in honor of the cadets who fell in the battle.  We are introduced to the seven cadets that will form the core group.  The main character is the son of the former Governor of Virginia and current Confederate Gen. Wise.  In an establishing scene, John (Luke Berward) witnesses the breakup of a slave family at a slave auction.  He will represent the minority of Southerners who find the peculiar institution abhorrent.   Five years later, he is a cadet at VMI.  He and his barracks mates take on a newbie as their “rat”.  It’s a tradition and a way to get pre-teen actor Nolan Gould of “Modern Family” into the film.  The other five include a Jew with artistic abilities, a vengeance-fueled cadet whose family was burned out by the Yankees, a frenemy for John, and the love-lorn Sam who is wooing local belle Libby.  To prove they are not loathsome slavery supporters, they have a good relationship with VMI’s cook, Old Judge (David).  

                    The cadet scenes are intercut with those of the opposing army commanders.  Grant (Skerritt) meets with Lincoln and promises to rain hell on the South.  Part of his plan is to send an army under Gen. Sigel to lay waste to the Shenandoah Valley (where VMI is located).  Since he distrusts Sigel, he attaches a Capt. Dupont (Arquette) as his eyes and ears.  Meanwhile, Gen. Breckinridge (Isaacs) is tasked with defending the valley.  When Sigel begins his offensive, Breckinridge is forced to call on the VMI student body to reinforce his army.  He is determined to keep them out of battle.  This is a promise he will not be able to keep.  And thank goodness, because otherwise we would have no movie.

                    “Field of Lost Shoes” had been in my queue for a long time, but I had avoided it because low budget Civil War movies are invariably bad.  When my recent research on the Wilderness Campaign turned up the Battle of New Market and the VMI story, I decided to watch the movie.  It just so happened the anniversary is today so that was part of the motivation.  The movie was better than I expected.  It has a surprisingly good cast for a film of this type.  Unfortunately, most of them are either slumming or perform poorly (David Arquette).  Only Jason Isaacs appears to have put effort into his role.  The cadets are well-played and their characters are nicely differentiated.  Not that the actors have any heavy-lifting to do.  The romance between Sam and Libby is chaste, but that is actually pretty true to the time.  The John / Jack conflict is cursory and leads to a standard reconciliation.  At one point, they have the obligatory discussion of slavery with John arguing the post-war South must change.  It’s a throw-in scene that checks a box, but there is no depth to the debate.  Some have accused the movie of inaccurately implying the cadets were anti-slavery.  Yes, they go to bat for the slave Old Uncle and the movie makes a point of having them save a slave caught under a wagon, but the film does not make them into abolitionists.  The movie is not interested in taking a stand on the peculiar institution.

                    As far as the battle, it’s obvious the production made use of a reenactment.  This works fairly well as the VMI actions are blended to make it look like they were part of the reenactment.  The problem is the footage of the reenactment does not fit the battle narrative and results in a confusion as to what is happening.  Some of this confusion is unavoidable as the Battle of New Market was actually fought in two stages and the movie understandably has to combine them.  With that said, it is surprisingly accurate, at least with regard to the role of VMI.  The combat is low-scale, but enhanced by the participation of reenactors.  The Confederate uniforms are appropriately ragged.  The actors reload their rifles properly.  The bayonets are rubber, but I’ll give a pass on that.  The battle scenes use slow motion with choral music.  The melee is not graphic, but there is some impact as not all of the seven survive. 

                    If you want to honor the memory of the only college student body to fight in a battle in American History, “Field of the Lost Shoes” will do the trick.  The Civil War has given us so few good movies that we have to take what we can get.  This is not a good movie, but it is sincere and does justice to the subject.  I would think it has been shown in Virginia high school classes and even today with the current backlash against lauding Confederate “heroes’, it is hard not to find the bravery of this group of teenagers to be inspirational.  Even though they were fighting for slavery. 

GRADE  =  C

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:   The background to the battle is acceptable.  Lincoln did put Grant in command of all the Union armies in March, 1864.  The movie has Lincoln having to be convinced to put him in command when in reality Lincoln was a big fan of Grant’s aggressive style and went to bat for him when others questioned the promotion.  The movie accurately summarizes Grant’s plan to use Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley.  Grant did distrust the abilities of Sigel and he did have some of his own men placed with Sigel to keep an eye on him.  The Capt. Dupont character is a composite of them.  Sigel was upset with the arrangement.  The movie does a good job of implying that Sigel was incompetent, but he gets off lightly in the battle as the movie does not show any of his decisions.  On the other side, Breckinridge is well-portrayed.  Although a political general (like Sigel), he turned out to be one of the better Confederate generals.  Breckinridge had been Vice President under Buchanan and ran for President in 1860.  In that election, he represented the South’s desire to protect slavery.  Although not in favor of secession, he joined the Confederacy and fought for it.  Although a likeable figure, the movie could be faulted for its positive portrayal of a man who could be considered a traitor and definitely was pro-slavery.  As far as his generalship, he did call on VMI to reinforce his outnumbered army.  He did intend it as a reserve that would be used only in an emergency.

  The movie does a good job on the participation of VMI in the battle.  257 cadets were involved.  On May 15 1864, they were part of Breckinridge’s army when it approached Sigel’s army near New Market.  Sigel had a brigade under Col. Augustus Moor (the Dupont character must have been based on him) out in front on a hill.  Breckinridge tried to provoke it into attacking him, but when the Yankees would not take the bait, he initiated the battle.  Breckinridge advanced with Wharton’s brigade on the left and Echols’ on the right.  Echols’ brigade was commanded by Col. George S. Patton, Sr.  The VMI cadets were in reserve.  As depicted in the movie, they came under artillery fire, but continued to march forward (foolishly) while the Echols’ men sprinted through the fire to take shelter.  Moor was pushed back to the main body which was located on Bushong’s Hill near Jacob Bushong’s farm (identified in the film).  Breckinridge dressed his lines in anticipation of the next stage.  Around 2 P.M., rifle and artillery fire caused his center to run.  He was forced to order the VMI contingent to plug the gap.  It did and the cadets formed behind a fence and exchanged fire.  Sigel ordered piecemeal attacks that were repulsed.  The fact that the unhinged Sigel was yelling orders in his native German caused confusion. 

                    Around 3 P.M., Breckinridge ordered an assault.  VMI joined in and crossed a field near Bushong’s orchard.  The area was muddy up to their calves and some lost their shoes in the goo.  They gallantly stormed a Union battery.  This was the climax of the battle as the Union army beat a hasty retreat.  Sigel ended up being canned by Grant.  10 cadets were killed (out of the total of 43 Rebel dead) and 47 were wounded.  Among the ten dead were Sam Atwill, Jack Stanard, and Thomas Garland Jefferson (Moses Ezekiel did read the New Testament to him as he lay dying).   Exekiel was an artist and became a famous sculptor after the war.