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 Glory is one of the more accurate films we’ve seen so far this semester. You can tell the filmmakers spent time going through Shaw's letters of his time leading the regiment. They also did a good job at portraying the unequal treatment and inequality many black soldiers faced. While some of that was dramatized, such as Montgomery’s harsh and racist ideology that seemed over dramatic compared to his real life counterpart, they have to cram 4 years of civil war opinions and ideations into a story about one regiment’s select months of service. As someone else pointed out, a lot of Shaw's soldiers weren’t actually formerly enslaved, but that wasn’t the case for all black regiments and the filmmakers did what they could to try and portray the attitudes and the actuality of that time. I also like that they depicted events as they happened. The battle at Fort Wagner wasn’t a victory and heavy losses were felt on the Union side, especially within the 54th. Shaw was killed and was in fact buried in a mass grave like they depicted. While most officers were to be honored, on either side, because of who Shaw was an officer to, deemed him as not honorable and unworthy in the eyes of the Confederate Soldiers.- Emma Galvin
 As others have said, this film depicts the frequent poor treatment of Black soldiers, but specifically, the film included actual racist quotes from the time period. For example, in class, Dr. McClurken read a quote that I recognized when I heard it repeated verbatim in the film, which I'd rather not repeat again here, but the fact that they included it in dialogue shows that the filmmakers did their research and looked at primary sources in order to set an historically accurate atmosphere. It also touched on the fact that these soldiers were paid less than their white counterparts ($10 per month instead of $13) due to discrimination. -Jennifer
+Although this movie used fictional characters, it did so not to take away from the film, but to add to it's messages. It also had many historically accurate parts, and so I think this movie is a good secondary source. -Kazu Ferris
 ====== Problems with historical accuracy? Errors in fact? ======
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 Despite my enjoyment of this movie, it’s not without its flaws. For one, the makeup of the regiment being comprised of former slaves is not true to reality. The 54th Regiment was an “elite” regiment of Massachusetts society and was mainly freedmen. I’m sure the filmmakers did this to educate the American public about how all black regiments “generally” worked (and to highlight the tension between certain characters, namely Trip and Thomas). However, it changed many of the interactions with the 54th and I wonder how it would have played out if it were changed to a more accurate representation. -Allie
+Glory did an amazing job of cementing the 54th regiment’s bravery into history, but it still had its inaccuracies. One of them that I noticed was in the movie they flogged Private Trip (Denzel Washington) for the reason of them thinking he deserted. This apparently had never happened in the 54th, and was only tried once by another colonel in a different regiment, which caused his regiment to mutiny. It didn’t make much sense to me for them to add that when it never happened, especially knowing what it meant to be whipped to the black soldiers. Furthermore, most of the soldiers were depicted as runaway slaves, when in reality this was a regiment that was hand picked by Frederick Douglas made up of free African Americans. They only made one soldier seem educated from the North, while purposely making a lot of the others seem dumb. Overall, I thought the 54th’s regiments story was told pretty well, but there were a couple additions to this story that were definitely unnecessary for the makers to add. -Matt S.
+I think that the fictional characters added were obviously inaccurate, but I do not think that they took away from the film as much as it could have. -Kazu Ferris
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 I believe this movie did a better job than most movies during this time period of highlighting african american’s effort in the Civil War. I also think it did a good job at showing the racism that they had to endure, like having to prove their abilities, putting up with racist comments, and being underpaid. This movie did very well for the time, making millions of dollars and winning awards, while also spreading a fairly accurate story of the 54th Regiment that probably isn’t taught about in primary school (at least I didn’t learn about it in primary school).  Leah B
+This movie had a profound impact on the audience when it came out, and still impacts many decades later. Before Glory was made, I would bet most people believed that the war was won completely by white soldiers. Portraying the 54th regiment’s bravery in battle, especially in their attempt to take over Fort Wagner, proved to the audience how important this regiment was for  the war. Sure, there was still 2 years worth of bloodshed after them, but it showed the audience why so many more black soldiers decided to enlist because of them. Even if they exaggerated some parts of this film, they didn’t take lightly the discrimination that these black soldiers had to face (manual labor, verbal or physical abuse, and unequal pay). Adding a big emphasis on that made their story resonate with audiences more, showing how resilient and brave these people really were. -Matt S.
 I think this movie is extremely important as far as historically based films go. It is fairly accurate, and while there are dramatizations and exaggerations of some characters' attitudes, it give the feeling of how african american soldiers were treated throughout the war. I think this is not only a captivating and interesting story in terms of film, but also in history. This would be a great film to introduce to someone who doesn't know a ton about history. It highlights a regiment not widely talked about in school and their role in the war. This movie is also relatively short compared to other war movies making it far more digestible. Along with that, they had fairly well known actors for 1989 with Cary Elwes known for the Princess Bride at the time and Matthew Broderick from Ferris Bueller. There was also Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington. This draws people to see the movie and teaches them about something new. I think this movie is one of the better examples of history depicted in film and why period films can be so important. -Emma Galvin