This movie gets quite a lot right, despite some of the dramatization. It is correct that Robert Gould Shaw was picked to lead the 54th because of his abolitionist background (which in part was due to his family) and combat experience. It is true that the men of the 54th came from diverse backgrounds, men like Private Trip represent the men who were formerly enslaved and men like Thomas represent the men who were born into freedom in the north. In the scene where Shaw is told he will be Colonel of the 54th, Frederick Douglass is in room. While that exact scene may have never actually played out, Douglass' two sons would go onto serve in the 54th. The movie does a good job too of showing the historical dichotomy between black men finally being able to officially serve in the United States armed forces to fight some of their former oppressors and continuing to face racism and discrimination in their own army. This movie takes a lot from James Henry Gooding’s letters during the war — he would serve in the 54th for the duration of the war. One sentiment that is echoed repeatedly throughout Gooding’s letters that the movie emphasizes is the belief amongst the black solider that their service was honorable and would bring them dignity and respect within a great American society. The movie contrasts this belief with scenes of white union soldiers jeering at men in the 54th, even using a direct quote from a letter at the time where a white soldier said he would prefer hogs to black troops because at least you could eat the hogs. While the movie follows Gooding’s writing quite well, it is interesting how none of the black soldiers are ever seen writing. Gooding addressed his writing to the New Bedford Mercury; however, Shaw is the one shown interacting with a newspaper correspondent on the front. This would be an example of the dramatization that the directors took on occasion, most likely to simplify or speed up the plot. – Nora M.

It seems to get most of the general course of events in history correct, but there were a few notable inaccuracies, such as the 54th having to fight to get needed supplies when in actuality they got all the supplies they requested without trouble, and also whipping was not allowed, so there would have been no such occurrence as that of what happened with Trip's character in the film. The 54th was also composed mostly of freedmen rather than former slaves. I believe they added these hardships to further emphasize how difficult it was for black people to fight in the civil war, as well as the troubles involved with being black in general at this time, but they could have done so in a way that was more historically factual. Also, the postscript states that Fort Wagner was never taken by Union troops, when it in fact was abandoned by the Confederates in 1863 later on after an attack by the Union Navy. - Leo Tooks

While reflecting upon Susie King Taylor’s accounting of her life and experience in camp with 33rd United States Colored Troops, late 1st South Carolina Volunteers (S.C.I), I noticed how overlooked or non-existent the presence of women, especially their role in military camps with the army during the war was in this film. This is despite its depiction of the life of military men in camp being very accurate, down to the division between officers and enlisted and the enlisted cooking for themselves and being engaged in various different activities. The famous opening scene serves as a great example of this, prominently showing the men’s boredom, movements, and amusements in the calm before the battle and those wounded, dying, and dead in the hospital after. Yet, these two places, the camp and hospital, would be places that would feature women serving as nurses, cooks, and laundresses such as the famous Cara Barton who was present at Antietam, women even served disguised as male soldiers in the battle. There is a complete absence of an accurate female presence in these or many such scenes in the film. In fact, I’d challenge anyone who sees the film to note any female characters, aside from the Southern woman who yells out the n-word. I find it especially noteworthy the role of teaching literacy, a role held by the former enslaved woman Susie King Taylor, to others in the camp is given, in the film, Andre Braugher’s character of Cpl. Thomas Searles, a free-born man of Massachusetts’ abolitionist intelligentsia who enlists as a soldier. Overall, this potentially is part of the overall theme that most Civil War films and films on military history are both targeted towards male audiences, leading them to either view female characters through their relations to male ones or ignore female depictions altogether, ironically contrasting with Gone with the Wind (more racist, more inaccurate, and more focused on female leads and characters). - Charles Salcedo

The potential inaccuracies in the portrayal of the 2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment (S.C.I) in relation to the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (M.A.I.) are very interesting, mostly centered around the burning of Darien. James Henry Gooding in his new correspondents note that the expedition captured “one schooner and a flat boat, loaded with cotton, about 20 barrels of turpentine, eight hogsheads of rosin, about a dozen cows, 50 or 60 sheep and 20 head of beeves” with the “books, pictures, furniture and household property” burned. Ironically, in the film, the 2nd was looting the property that was burned and the 54th burning the property that was looted. In addition, if assuming Gooding represents the general opinion of the 54th, there was little controversy over the decision to burn Darien asides from Colonel Shaw harboring feelings that Colonel Montgomery (in command of the 2nd) “had gone too far in destroying Darien, [trying] to dissociate himself from what he believed to be sheer vandalism, carried out for personal satisfaction rather than military necessity.” In fact, Gooding makes a rebuttal to the opposition, “copperhead” press basically calls them out to be utterly stupid, overly dramatic, hypocritical, and as subversive elements acting to undermine the war effort, key to which is the recruitment of black soldiers. The general character and behavior of the 2nd SCI also seems to fly in the face of Susie King Taylor’s, black laundresses, teacher, and former enslaved person, general characterisation and sentiments of a similar unit, the 1st SCI, as a model regiment. The (initial) recruitment issues of all three regiments, due to their character as volunteers, were also brushed aside in the film. - Charles Salcedo

It works well, showing a big turning point in history in which the counterculture movement affected media consumption heavily. Studios were becoming more comfortable with showing the detriments of racism and the sheer horror of slavery and the overall faults in our country's past. However, it is still a product of its time, in that it still refuses to have the main character be a black person. Everything is still seen from the perspective of a privileged white man, likely so that white audience members can identify themselves with the “good” white person, when in reality Shaw had used slurs to refer to black people frequently in his personal writings despite being an abolitionist. - Leo Tooks

I agree with a lot of what Leo is saying here above. I also noticed quickly on into the movie that while the Black members of the regiment did get their own scenes, the White colonels and generals were clearly the main characters in the movie. The only character that we really get to see or know more beyond his action in the movie is General Shaw when his narration of his letters to his mother are read aloud. It reminded me of the film Amistad and how while the story itself is centered around this group of African Americans, the predominant characters are the White men who help them get to their end goal. Leo's comment about the making the main character the White man to make audiences resonate or root for the “good” White person made me think about the question Dr. McClurken posed in class about how did casting/having Matthew Broderick play General Shaw change the way we/audiences see the story. I've never seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off (sorry!), but I know the general premise of the movie and that Broderick's character is a funny, light-hearted teenage boy. That's what audiences associate the actor with, and I'm assuming that they go into this movie already having a softspot for him that they then may project onto his character, which ties into this idea that Leo brought up about how majority White audiences are identifying with General Shaw's character in this film and seeing him as the “good guy” even though he does some pretty terrible things throughout the movie. – Grayson D.

Glory works as a primary source in that it well represents a sort of “middle period” in how slavery and race relations were depicted in American media. By the time of the film’s release, it was now standard for historical films to be explicitly anti-slavery, lack any romanticization of the antebellum South, and to show at least in part how violent slavery could be. Glory goes an additional step and includes numerous cases of white northerners being racist to black people, which is a part of history that would not have always been well portrayed at this time. However, Glory is also of an age where not all elements regarding the depiction of slavery and black characters were as they would be in a more modern film. The plot of Glory is overwhelmingly driven by the white characters, and they serve as the main characters of the film, rather than the black characters who are shown to have a greater investment in the conflict in many ways. This is the most notable example of an element from the film that dates it in a negative light to modern audiences. Overall, both factors in combination contribute to Glory being a film of its time, and they reveal how it can be seen as a primary source. - Hunter M.

Glory (1989) is an important movie to watch and discuss because I think it provides more nuance and clarity for a topic that I think many Americans tend to generalize. The Civil War was of course a fight between the North and South based on ideological and moral grounds for varying reasons, but I think, like Dr. McClurken pointed out in class, the general public's understanding is largely rooted in hindsight in that abolition is seen as something that was continuously a major part of the fight for northerners. Making a movie that highlights an all Black regiment that for some may be unknown and showing the events that led to abolition and the approval of Black soldiers in the Union Army changes or complicates (in a good way) the overall narrative of the Civil War for Americans. – Grayson D.

We should care about Glory’s version of history because it does make a very good-faith attempt to tell a story that had previously not been shown in film. While it does make dramatizations of events and include some more minor plot points that are not historically accurate, it is overall very faithful to historical events. It notably does not perpetuate the myth that all northerners were abolitionists or against racism, which can commonly arise in the context of depictions of the Civil War. Additionally, Glory is notable for its focus on specifically the Massachusetts 54th regiment, as Civil War movies had historically not put as much emphasis on the importance of black soldiers to the war effort. Finally, Glory also is notable as a film for proving the ability of comedic actors like Matthew Broderick and Cary Elwes to appear in a serious historical film, paving the way for other primarily comedic actors to make similar jumps in style in the future. - Hunter M.

This movie came out in 1989 and featured a lot of prominent actors that would later go on to have stellar careers, such as Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Matthew Broderick. The fact that this movie is important in all three men’s repertoires and the fact that those three men are essential to American popular culture in the late 20th century through the beginning of the 21st century says something about the mark that this movie made and is still making. This movie gets a lot right about history and includes some powerful imagery about the racial bounds this country has always adhered to. Whenever I see this movie, I always intently watch the final scene where Shaw’s body is thrown in the same pit as Private Trip’s — their eyes closed and their bodies lifeless. Their faces touch as they slowly move down the mass grave dug into the sand. This imagery is incredibly powerful and leaves the audience with one clear message: death will treat us all the same. No matter the difference of skin color between the two men, or their journeys and arcs in the movie, or their backgrounds, they die the same death and get buried alongside each other. Their relationship begins when Trip is wrongfully accused of desertion and is whipped in an institution that promised to bring him respect of the white man. Throughout the movie, there are several scenes where both try to understand each other, like when they are in South Carolina and Shaw promises Trip that the war will end. That end is simply their deaths, where the social and racial bounds are broke by the mass grave. We, as the viewers, are then passed the torch of that understanding. We should care about the artistic brilliance of this film right alongside its historical accuracy of the 54th Massachusetts. – Nora M.