No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington

In the film "No Retreat From Destiny" viewers are presented with the events that led up to the Battle of Monocacy presented instead of with the usual Ken Burns photos/quotes but with live reenactments.

The cinematography is gorgeous and the editing is crisp and tight. I loved how they used the photos in this film!! The production design is amazing and the costuming is great.

There are a few drawbacks, some of these people are not professional actors and sometimes there are some awkward pauses in the script which leads to the cuing over some overly dramatic music. It's intrusive and kind of reminds you that you are in fact watching a film.

However if you have an interest in the Civil War or you are history teacher I strongly recommend this film.

What an accomplishment by Lion Heart Film Works for their portrayal of the Battle of Monocacy....Mr. Hershberger and company deliver the goods to all Civil War buffs who see the value in and appreciate ATTENTION TO DETAIL in regards to the tactics of the day and the brave men and women involved.

For those who haven't already, I would purchase the 2-disc DVD in order to gain a great insight into the making of the film and some of the best reenactment footage around!! Director Kevin Hershberger and writer/historian John Pagano also provide a feature-length commentary which, in my opinion, acts as an invaluable tool for aspiring indie filmmakers of this genre. Truly inspiring!! Fans of history...be on the look out for more stuff from these guys!

You'd have to be pretty much of a civil-war scholar to understand what is going on in this film, Monocacy not being one of the celebrated battles, though possibly it should be. This was the third and last attempt by the Confederates to invade the North (July 1864), in this case Washington itself. Although it was a Confederate victory, Grant was able to send reinforcements just in time to save the White House from occupation, driving-off an enemy force that had managed to shoot dead the soldier standing right beside Lincoln, who had insisted on coming out to watch.

The strengths of this film are splendid cinematography and some notably good casting, Robert E. Lee and General George Meade being uncannily lifelike. But it is the weaknesses that show up more strongly. The fieldcraft is not realistic - too gingerly altogether - though the deaths in the field are highly credible, with no attempt to pretty-up the reality of the final moments. The narrator, with her attractively soft Southern accent, is barely audible behind the over-loud music track. And I'm not sure that the Confederate wives and mothers were still dressing-up and cheering their menfolk in the old style as the hunger and misery set in.

Finally, you would not need to be a civil-war scholar to spot a caption reading 'Army of the Potomac Headquarters', when it is so obvious that we're in the enemy's Headquarters (Army of Northern Virginia).

My great-grandfather, Alfred N. Sova (1847-1935) was a private in the 9th New York Heavy Artillery, assigned to Rickett's Division of the Sixth Corps. He is portrayed by Jeremy Wade in the bridge burning scene. While not entirely accurate, (the wheat sheaves were actually placed in the roof area of the bridge prior to Alfred "shinning" up a beam to start the fire), these dramatic scenes certainly depict the courage and confusion in the fog of war.

Although Alfred also fought at Cold Harbor, Cedar Creek, the Peterburg Breakthrough and Saylor's Creek, his actions at the Battle of Monocacy and personal role in the strategic burning of the covered bridge were the highlight of his military service and the experience that he recounted most often to his family and friends during his long life.

~Fred Rohrer

I'm writing this as someone not connected to this project in any way and wouldn't have an intimate knowledge as to budgets nor activities represented in this video. Those are not things regular viewes would know.

That being said, I will say of the production values that they seemed pretty good for the most part. The video starts off with a woman obviously from the south speaking very poetically. That same voice and type of speaking appears a few more times but that's it. This video was included in the "Lincoln: Trial by Fire" DVD collection.

To be painfully honest, the video came off more of a bunch of Civil War re-enactors wanting to document what they do rather than be about some battle that saves the citry of our nations capital. (At least that's what the Summary says it's about.) There is no voice-over explaining to us what what was happening nor why troops were being moved into certain positions nor what happened that would spur them to take the action either side was taken. At certain parts there is a subtitle at the bottom with the name of the location and, at time, the name of the person in the frame which is fine but I kept asking myself "Why?". Granted, there is some dialogue like, for instance, you see a bunch of Confederate soldiers walking along a rode next to a fence where some women were hanging about only to have one of the soldiers run over to one of them who begins to almost plead him to just forget everything and come on home while he's saying he can't. Then, I think it involved the same two people, while he's back with those walking he runs back and gives her some kind of red fabric but not sure because he didn't have it on him just a few seconds earlier.

There were spots where the voice of the person talking was muffled but instead of hearing words, you heard whatever it was around the mic being rustled as if it was inside a saddlebag...you can see someone's mouth moving...just couldn't hear them. For the most part, you have men moving from place to place firing their rifles or a cannon or two but nothing to explain what was going on.

In places where a location was indicated in a subtitle on the bottom of the screen, never was a map ever shown showing us the bigger picture...only local maps thay may (or may not) have existed at the time. There may have been a year indicated in those subtitles but to be honest, I don't remember seeing them so I don't know how close to the end of the war these activities occurred (other than one of the re-enactiors stating that this was the 3rd attempt on Washington D.C. by the Confederacy).

My advice to future film-makers: if you want to tell us a story than do that...tell us the story. Don't just show us a bunch of people running around shooting guns at each other in different color uniforms. In a sense I was feeling much like the Confederate soldiers must have felt...confused and questioning what was the point. In all, this video had the promise of being different since it seemed to be telling it from the point of the Confederacy, it's just a shame it didn't live up that promise...nor any other.