“We must make it a whole country…for all who live here…so that all can speak.”

The United States established the Bureau of Colored Troops in May of 1863. By war’s end, 179,000 African-American would serve in the U.S. Army, and another 19,000 in the Navy. These men made up roughly 10% of the entire Union military. Forty thousand died during the war.

Glory is the story of one of the war’s first African-American units - the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers.

While I’ve seen Glory, this was the first time I’ve viewed it in over 20 years. It’s held up pretty well.

The film tells the story of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) and the men of the 54th. Opening during the Battle of Antietam, it moves (relatively) quickly to Shaw’s selection as head of the newly formed 54th.

The first hour is pretty much a set-piece production: recruit the troops; build trust; train them for combat; and fight prejudice and bureaucracy. The second hour is also fairly straight forward, with the 54th finally getting into the fight, climaxing in their legendary assault on Fort Wagner, in South Carolina.

There are things I really like about this movie. I’ll get to them in a minute, but need to take out the trash first.

Watching Glory after two decades…

I won’t say that my dog Gami could have done as good a job in plotting this movie…but she could. The story is predictable, the characters stereotypical, and the dialogue is pretty bad.

But I still love this movie.

The storyline is, as mentioned, pretty tired - but it has the not inconsiderable merit of being a real story. The things the movie shows really happened. The challenges the 54th had to battle, from training through Fort Wagner, really happened.

The characters also often come across as cutouts. That would get old pretty quickly except for two things. First, it is pretty clear that the director, Edward Zwick (2016’s The Birth of a Nation) is using them as composites and archetypes to represent the kind of men who served. Second, both the stereotyping and crappy dialogue are balanced against absolutely brilliant acting from a first rate cast, including Denzel Washington (The Magnificent Seven), Cary Elwes (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), and Morgan Freeman (God).

Oh yeah - and the story is true.

Being entirely honest, Glory is not as good as I remembered. But it is still a solid movie, telling an important story. And…don’t tell anyone…it still has parts that make me tear up, especially the end.

You can catch Glory HERE.

Three out of Five Cannonades.

✨✨✨

Post Credit Bonus -

Glory was based on two books, Lincoln Kirstein’s “Lay the Laurel” and Peter Burchard’s “One Gallant Rush.” They are solid reads.

An important character in the books and movies is Sergeant Major Rawlins (Morgan Freeman). Rawlins was inspired by Medal of Honor winner and former slave, William Harvey Carney, who served with the 54th during the assault on Fort Wagner.