Posted on 09/30/2014 12:29:23 PM PDT by 11th_VA
Rewriting history to egregious ends, Field of Lost Shoes recounts the true-life saga of seven Virginia Military Institute cadets who in 1864 died in service to the Confederate Army during the Battle of New Market.
Awash in phony-looking facial hair and clichéd period drama, Sean McNamara’s drama defines those brave boys via their love of black people, their embrace of Jews, and their desire to fight so that they might protect their homeland from “foreign invaders,” uphold their “traditions,” and preserve their “future.” Save for a brief prologue, there isn’t a pro-slavery Southern man to be found in this fantasyland vision of the Civil War, only kind-hearted, open-minded progressives who want to be with their love-at-first-sight gals, or pursue sculpting careers, or liberate their oppressed African American brethren.
That counterfeit romantic portrait is contrasted with the contemptuous depiction of Ulysses S. Grant (Tom Skerritt) as a “butcher” and the Union as a bunch of child-murderers led by a goofily mustached David Arquette.
(Excerpt) Read more at villagevoice.com ...
Sorry if I offended anyone for posting this, but this is what we are up against in teaching history these days. Libs always want to teach history from a left-of-center philosophy. And in that point of view, everything 'Southern' is evil, there can be no redeeming or honorable values.
The Shenandoah Campaign of 1864 WAS a dry run for the 'March to the Sea' in 1865. It was an all out campaign to starve Lee's Army over the winter. Destroy the breadbasket of the Confederacy (Shenandoah Valley) and win the war.
Author doesn't get it that people who lived there would 'fight like hell' to preserve their way of life and instead has to impune all their motives.
Haven't seen the movie but I hope to this weekend.
Yep. Sheridan did to the Shenendoah what Sherman would later to to Georgia. And considering this drivel comes from the Village Voice, you need to understand that in their view, all Southerners are corn-squeeze-swillin’ gap-tooth hicks who lynch black people on Sundays in between NASCAR races and cross-burnin’s.
But YOU’RE the bigots ...
Evidently the depiction of the Jewish cadet reading from the New Testament to a dying (Christian) classmate, is based on fact; as well as the anti-slavery sentiments of one of the cadets (though he was in a minority).
Liberals have been itching to refight the Civil War for ages now. It’s amazing to me as someone who came of age at a time when we believed in forgiving each other and moving on into the present that it should come to this. There were thousands of decent soldiers both in the south and the north and as much as I like Grant, he was called a butcher - and by his own side on many occasions. Get over it, libs!
Assuming that no Confederates were racist is no more illogical to me than the Holder/Obama administration’s assumption that no Fergusson demonstrators were racist.
Oh boy. A Civil War thread based on a movie reviewed by the Village Voice.
The Attorney General of the Confederacy had the nice 'Irish' name of Judah P. Benjamin.
But of course, the facts can't get in the way of the pinko narrative.
The resulting environmental damage probably contributed to the devastation caused by the flood of 1870. Sheridan should be in the environmentalist wackos' dog house.
Yeah...in other news...Yankeeland loses 40% of its representation in Congress...those people are so brilliant no one can stand them!
Only Confederates can be racist, unlike those kindly souls who lynched a black man in Greenwich Village during the draft riots.
Has there ever been any doubt that he was just that -- once he was in the East?
Granted his brilliant Vicksburg campaign showed true generalship.
But his campaign against the Army of Northern Virginia was in your face, full frontal, war by attrition. Utilizing sheer force of numerical superiority by willingly trading the lives of his soldiers for those commanded by Lee. And he make no secret of it.
And how they freed black gays and lesbians while learning to love them.
And how learning to be gay was the best thing about being free.
And how they fought for freedom against the Republican suburbanites of Atlanta, who were white and Christian, and Republican.
Did I mention that they fought for their freedom against evil southern white Republicans?
Am I right?
Grant was a butcher, his casualties at Spotsylvania & the Wilderness (not to mention the totally unnecessary affair at Cold Harbor) were atrocious.
Don’t even bother discussing history with libs—they will always add or take away from what really happened. Once a liar, always a liar.
So many yankees wanted the blacks to be freed so badly they were even willing to pay someone to go fight for them. /s
The irony that today’s Leftists are the new anti-Semites and anti-blacks utterly escapes this clown. Putz.
The snide description given by the Village Voice is about as wide of the mark as the “history” that they themselves embrace as the absolute truth.
“Racism” applied to that era and any era before the 20th century is anachronistic. There was nobody, on either side, that could be pointed to as not being “racist.” Not Lincoln, not white Abolitionists who believed themselves superior just as surely as any slaveholder.
The war was not fought from the northern perspective over slavery, it was to preserve the Union. Economically, it was a tariff war. Most southerners had no slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation was a military document, intended to foment revolt and insurrection in the Confederate states, only. It did not free slaves elsewhere.
So, romanticists and ideologues on either side of the historical debate launch into warped, hysterical talking points when defending their equally incorrect points of view.
The truth of it is in the middle, as always. I do know that the Constitution being run over roughshod during that conflict led to the massive Federal overreach of today, and I suspect few would disagree with this assessment on Free Republic.
Beyond that, it’s highly emotional. Facts are routinely ignored by all.
The soundest strategy was to head straight for Richmond and Petersburg knowing Lee could not abandon them and grind away at the Army of Northern Virginia until superior numbers of men and materiel won.
Grant knew that the surest strategy was simple, brutal, and effective.
War is hell.
If you want to judge them by today's standards then everyone back then was racist.
I was at a private Showing of this at the GI Film Fest in May and it is quite good movie.. It shows the Confederate side and it was well made. I liked it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.