Cullen, Jim. The Civil War
in Popular Culture. Smithsonian Institution Press.
Washington: 1995
In
this book, Cullen explorers the way that the Civil War has been
portrayed in books and movies. Using what is known of the actual
history, attempts to find where movies, such as Glory and
Gone With the Wind, take liberties with the facts and the
reasons behind these changes. For my particular focus on the
Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth, and therefore the film Glory,
I looked at how Cullen talked about the effect that the movie
had on the perception that people had about the regiment. Cullen
also discusses how older historians had portrayed blacks as not
being as active in the gaining of their freedom as they actually
were as well as the idea of whites being completely benevolent.
Newer historians talked more about white animosity toward the
idea of black soldiers as well as the treatment of them, which
was portrayed in Glory quite well.
Holzer, Harold and Mark E.
Neely, Jr. Mine eyes have seen the glory: The Civil War in
art. New York: Orion Books, 1993
Holzer
and Neely went through many of the nation's museums and private
displays to locate images depicting the Civil War and reproduced
them in this book in full color. For each image they discuss
some of the history of the work and context around it. In
addition, in a similar vain to Kirk Savage in his book, they do
some analysis in terms of the meaning and intention of the work.
They do this much less than Savage does and don't seem to read
quite as much into everything. I used this book mainly for its
discussion of "Storming Fort Wagner," one of only
existing depictions of that battle. Their main focus seems to be
mainly to show the works that have been created about the Civil
War so that people who would not normally be able to see them
can appreciate the works.
Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro
in the Civil War., Russel & Russel, New York: 1968
(original 1953).
This
book was excellent for its discussion of the history of the
regiment. I kept what history I found to be interesting on the
website as a reference for some hopefully interesting facts.
Quarles is not completely objective in discussion the regiment,
but that is to be expected of so emotional a topic. In
discussions the actions of the men of the Fifty-Fourth, he talks
about how they had were willing to go up against impossible odds
for the chance of freedom for future descendants. Also, given
that the whites above them often failed to provide necessary
rations and pay, they performed superbly. In later portions that
were used, he talks a lot about the payment crisis that these
went through starting with Militia Act and ending when Congress
finally agreed to compensate the men fairly.
The
Atlantic Online, Soundings, Robert Lowell, "For the Union
Dead", April 11, 2001,
http://theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/soundings/lowell.htm
This
article from Atlantic Monthly online version was my source for
Robert Lowell's "For the Union Dead." It goes into
some length about what Lowell was perhaps thinking at the time
of his writing the poem. It goes into the fact that the
centennial of the Civil War was during 1960, when the poem was
written, and also the inspiration behind the poem
(Saint-Gaudens' Shaw Memorial, which was in Boston). The United
States was in Civil Rights turmoil at this time and Lowell
attempted to address this in his poem. In my analysis, I tried
to use that fact as well as links to other poems and historical
context to create a hopefully accurate look at it. He was one of
the few serious poets at the time willing to address the issues
of racism and the need for a stop to the complacency of "white"
America.
Study Guide for May 1 Class –
Glory and the Civil
War, Scott Casper
http://www.unr.edu/artsci/history/HIST406/class14.html
The course
website was actually my source for the poem "The Hero of
Fort Wagner." It was actually quite difficult to track down
information about the poet or the work. The site as a whole was
very useful for providing historical context for everything to
give a starting point for any analysis I attempted. On this
particular page I had also intially looked at using Emerson's
"Voluntaries" but even after reading it many times I
could not find enough in it to apply it to how the Fifty-Fourth
was being portrayed. It seemed to mostly be about the sacrifice
that people were willing to make for the cause of right, even
when the odds were against them. This was particularly the case
with blacks, which I think he addressed, but there was really no
discussion of Gould or the Fifty-Fourth specifically.
Savage, Kirk. Standing
soldiers, kneeling slaves: race, war and the monument in
nineteenth-century America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1997.
Savage's
book is about monuments and what they mean today as well as when
they were made. He has a lot of historical information about the
monuments including the battles that went behind the scenes. I
used this work mostly for his discussion about the Shaw
Memorial. Some of my analysis was branched off of his, but I
tried to mostly the work for the "Tour" portion of the
Shaw Memorial to give context on its creation. His main point on
that Shaw Monument seems to be how it was such a departure from
past Civil War and soldier monuments in that it had so much life
to it as well as actually portraying African-Americans in the
first place, and more importantly, in a positive and
less-caricatured way than had previously been done.
"Glory". Dir.
Edward Zwick. Columbia Tri-Star, 1989
I
made a specific point to watch this film after having learned
about the Fifty-Fourth so that I could view it with an
"educated" eye on the subject. In this way, I hoped to
see how the film diverged from history and how it attempted to
portray the regiment and the events around them in an accurate,
but entertaining way. The film was very good about portraying
the fact that not all whites were against black soldiers, even
if they were skeptical. However, it does show the hardships and
pure bigotry that the men did in fact face in their daily lives
trying to prove themselves as men and soldiers. The movie itself
was based on the letters of Robert Gould Shaw (many of the lines
and narration from the movie felt very authentic at times when
Shaw seemed to be contemplating things) as well as "One
Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment"
by Peter Burchard. I was unable to find this book which I would
have liked to use to see how the film changed from the book.
McPherson, Jame M. "The
Glory Story" in Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the
American Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1996
James
McPherson uses this article to give a positive answer to the
question of "Can Movies Teach History?" James
McPherson is clearly a fan of the film "Glory" but in
his usual style he backs up his enthusiasm with facts and
excellent analysis. The point of the article is that a film like
"Glory" can be both entertaining as well as a source
for information about actual historical events in their essence
(which is all that a person really needs to know). Using
histories of the regiment in books and magazines as well as
letters of Robert Shaw, McPhereson discusses the actual events
that were occurring in 1863 surrounding the Fifty-Fourth and the
Battle of Fort Wagner. He then goes to show that the film gets
most of the details right, glossing over and changing some
things in the name of entertainment and expediency of
storytelling. While I did not use a lot of the information
directly for the website, and had already viewed the film upon
reading it, it served as a good reinforcement for some of my
thoughts as well as a source for some of the "inaccuracies"
that I had missed.
http://www.nga.gov/education/schoolarts/gaudens.htm
(National Gallery of Art)
Harper's Weekly June 13,
1863 – Source of "The Flag"
Harper's Weekly November 5, 1863 – Source of "One
Grave"
http://www.sonnets.org/dunbar.htm
– Source of "Robert Gould Shaw"