Some Analysis and Commentary of "Glory"

As with many of the portrayals, this one done in 1989, the film is just as much a portrait of the young Colonel Shaw as it is a movie about the black regiment that he led. The fact that he wasn’t completely sure if he should lead the regiment is represented, which is true. However, the circumstances were changed. In the film, he is asked directly by Governor Andrew outside and goes outside to deliberate and makes the decision then and there. Historically, Andrew wrote him a letter which his father conveyed to him and he at first rejected the offer. The director chose to have an older version of Frederick Douglass present at this party. At the time, Douglass would have been in his 40s, not 60s or even later as the movie shows. However, his look in the movie is the same as that in famous pictures of him, which is perhaps the reason.

Historians seem to differ about how he actually felt about the idea of a black regiment. According to Burchard in his One Gallant Rush, Shaw was “ambivalent not only about taking the regiment, but also the entire idea of arming African Americans.” Quarles’ Negroes in the Civil War portrays Shaw as being fully in support of the idea. Regardless, he took the offer in the end.

He is also shown as being a very kind man, while at the same time having to be hard with his troops. He wants to do everything in his power to ensure that the soldiers that are under his lead are the best possible, especially because they are black and not expected to be so (The character of General Montgomery in the film expressed that the blacks are "little monkey children" who would never get to experience military action). He does not want to let them, or Governor Andrew, down. In a letter to his mom (presumably at least marginally accurate) is talks about not being to connect with the man and feeling "weak."

The film attempts to depict the wide range of 180,000 blacks that ended up fighting for the Union. While the majority of men in the Fifty-fourth had for the most part always been free, the film represents many of them as recently freed slaves. This is closer to the picture of black involvement as a whole. In the end, most of the 180,000 were freed slaves.

The Flag

The flag is important to this movie, at least in the end. Shaw asks the character Trip (played by a young Denzel Washington) if he would carry the colors. Shaw points how what an honor it is considered to carry the American flag into battle. Trip is not too concerned about the honor given by a white man, he’s fighting for himself. In the end, he ends up picking up the flag when the soldier carrying it falls during the attack on Fort Wagner. In this way, Trip seems to take on the role that the real-life Carney played in that aspect. However, in the movie he is shot and killed as he charges up the hill with the flag. This is possibly meant to be somehow more “heroic” than the actual facts of Carney living, with wounds, to carry the colors off the field to safety.