Glory Redivivus
By Stephen Davis · Originally published September 2019 · p. 38
Readers of my “Hollywood History” column last month may have wondered why I didn’t mention Glory (1989) in my brief listing of memorable Civil War movies. Well, it’s because I was looking forward to the 30th Anniversary return of the film to big-screen theaters on July 21. A bunch of friends from the Atlanta Civil War Round Table joined me for the movie. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, so in many ways viewing it again in a darkened theater was like seeing it for the first time. …sort of. I knew what to expect: Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) leading Massachusetts troops at Antietam; Governor Andrew offering Shaw the colonelcy of the colored regiment he planned to raise; the long period of drilling and equipping; first action on James Island, July 16, 1863; and the heroic, tragic charge against Fort Wagner two days later. That’s the familiar outline. But watching it again, I couldn’t help but be moved by some particular scenes: • Frederick Douglass declares that the formation of the 54th will offer dignity for men used to degradation; • Major Forbes, Robert’s friend, asking, do you know how popular it will be in Massachusetts to hand guns to a thousand coloreds? (the same Forbes who, later, protests the flogging of Denzel Washington for leaving camp looking for shoes); • At training camp, veterans laugh at the “gingers”*; • After Shaw announces that the Rebel government has declared that all black Union soldiers captured will be returned to slavery, he allows his men to apply for discharge. The next morning he asks how many are left—then sees the full regiment standing at attention to greet him; • When he learns that his men will be paid only $10 a month (instead of $13), Shaw joins them in tearing up his pay voucher. *No kidding: a few years ago, my favorite AM-radio station one evening played a tune whose refrain ran, “Only a Ginger can call another Ginger a Ginger.” Wish I knew the artist. But you get what I mean. What struck me is that Glory focuses on the process by which
Shaw’s soldiers in training and drill gradually transform themselves into soldiers—men, as one of them says. As we know, the process of becoming a man is a stop-and-go, very uncertain transition, with back-and-forths all along the way. Thus I noted that after receiving “blue suits,” their uniforms—a hugely important event for the 54th—the soldiers then resort to childish antics when they receive their muskets. (Back-and-forth.) In preparation for the theater screening, I read John David Smith’s essay on Glory in a new book, Matthew Christopher Hulbert and John C. Inscoe, eds., Writing History with Lightning: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth Century America (Louisiana State University Press, 2019). Professor Smith makes the point that “unlike the caricatures of blacks in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone With the Wind (1939), Glory offered ‘a greater variety of black characters.’” That resonated when I noticed the huge behavioral differences between, say, Sergeant Major John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) and Private Trip (Denzel). Yet the two came together so movingly in the campfire revival scene when the men are singing their hymnal (“Lawd! Lawd! Lawd!”). The professors got it right, back in ’89. In a review of Glory for the American Historical Review, Gerald Horne, teacher of American Studies in Houston, wrote that Hollywood’s Civil War has been fought by Northern and Southern white men, with black people looking on rather helplessly. “With Glory,” he writes, referring to the 188,000 blacks who fought for the Union, “125 years after the fact, Hollywood finally gets this chapter in history right.” Noting that most of the men who volunteered for the 54th were not former slaves, James M. McPherson wrote, “That is the real story told by Glory. That is why most of the soldiers are depicted as former slaves. It is a story of their transformation from an oppressed to a proud people.” I noted that in the film, when the 54th marched through Boston headed for the front, Frederick Douglass and Governor Andrew both held their hands over their hearts. Director Ed Zwick made this point when he was interviewed by film critic Armond White (Film Comment, January 1990). Zwick remarked that he hoped his film would succeed in “redressing historical misperception, providing positive role models” about African Americans in Civil War America. Morgan Freeman, above all, got this. “This is the kind of picture that gives legitimacy to the history of people of color and tells us who we are,” he remarked. A couple of years ago Civil War Monitor published a special for-newsstand-only issue, The Civil War Almanac. It featured a bunch of cool stuff: “Most Overrated Commanders,” “Best Photographs,” et al. The section on “Best Movies” offered opinions by Profs. Matthew Hulbert, James Marten and Amy Taylor. Not surprisingly, Glory was #1 on their collective list. In its current Summer 2019 issue, Civil War Monitor published Hulbert’s and Marten’s individual “Top Ten” lists; Glory was on both of them. After the movie my friends and I retired to a local pub to discuss our experiences, especially the scenes that impressed them anew. For Charlie Crawford, it was when Morgan upbraided Denzel for his surly attitude. Loran Crabtree commented on the final charge that demonstrated the soldiers’ courage. Carlton Mullis mentioned the arrival of their uniforms (“If you have ever put on a uniform, you understand the transformation”). Ken Griffiths remembered the pay vouchers. Mary Elizabeth Ellard offered that this was the first time she saw the movie in a theater; back in 1989, she was in veterinary school, and couldn’t spare the time (“So excited to finally see it!”). Catch this, from Gordon Jones: “My most memorable scene was the one where Colonel Shaw is being dressed by his valet prior to leading the assault on Ft. Wagner. Years ago, when filming an episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?,’ Matthew Broderick told me that the dressing scene was actually his idea. In getting costumed as an officer every day, he was struck by the amount of time it took simply to get dressed, especially with the sash, sword belt, and so on. The music and the build-up tell you that Shaw understands full well what is about to happen. His is the burden of leadership—he has to look and act the part to inspire confidence in his men, even though he is suppressing his personal fear. The man knows he’s doing to die, and he’s dressing for death.” That brings up my overriding impression from watching Glory again. Premiering in 1989, Edward Zwick’s masterpiece appeared fifteen years after the
United States had lost the war in Vietnam. A decade and a half later the country was still embittered by the experience of futile and wasteful war. But here came a film that recast war in its ancient guise—manly combat as ennobling, battlefield death as sublime. (The very title itself, Glory.) The film’s soundtrack heightened that message. James Horner’s soaring score, those haunting choral voices; I thought I was listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on the beaches of Morris Island. I relived that emotional experience at the theater that Sunday afternoon. (In the credits, I learned that the singers were none other than the Boys’ Choir of Harlem!) Shaw’s father wanted no monument except the ditch, where his son’s body was thrown The lines are from Robert Lowell’s poem, “Colonel Shaw and the Massachusetts’ 54th” (1959), now more famous as “For the Union Dead.” Colonel Shaw did in fact get a monument, though not at Morris Island, nor in Beaufort, South Carolina (where Shaw’s anonymous remains were probably reinterred). It’s in Boston, opposite the State House on Boston Common. In the early 1880s, Bostonians decided to erect a monument to Shaw and his regiment, raised money and commissioned the famed sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to render the work. Its dedication on May 31, 1897, brought forth magnificent oratory from dignitaries who extolled the bravery of Shaw and his men, shown on the march in Saint-Gaudens’ bronze relief. This is the monument so touchingly shown in the final minutes of Glory, the camera poring over every detail of Shaw and his soldiers. (After the film, we watched Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies explain that it was the Saint-Gaudens monument that inspired screenwriter Kevin Jarre to write Glory.) This very sculpture was also the inspiration for Robert Lowell’s poem. Their monument sticks like a fishbone in the city’s throat. Its Colonel is as lean as a compass-needle. It’s not hard to get the poet’s meaning. Here we are in today’s rat-racing, money-grubbing, Zoloft-popping culture—in Boston, but ‘most everywhere in America—and in stark, “compass-needle” contrast stand Robert Gould Shaw and his men from a long-gone era.
Talk about sublimity! (My point, above.) Lowell’s poem concludes: Colonel Shaw is riding on his bubble, he waits for the blessed break. The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere, giant finned cars nose forward like fish; a savage servility slides by on grease. Sources •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Peter Burchard, One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment (New York, 1965). Bruce Chadwick, The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film (New York, 2001). Henry J. Duffy, “Consecration and Monument: Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, and the Shaw Memorial” in Kirk Savage ed., The Civil War in Art and Memory (New Haven: 2016), 189-202. Russell Duncan, Where Death and Glory Meet: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry (Athens, 1999). Gary W. Gallagher, Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (Chapel Hill, 2008). Michael Hofferber, “Bronze Heroes: Augusts Saint-Gaudens’ Civil War Memorials,” Civil War Times Illustrated, vol. 26, no. 7 (November 1987), 32-37. Gerald Horne, review of Glory, American Historical Review, vol. 95, no. 4 (October 1990), 1141. C. Peter Jorgensen, “The Making of ‘Glory,’” Civil War Times Illustrated, vol. 28, no. 6 (November-December 1989), 52-59. James M. McPherson, “The ‘Glory’ Story,” New Republic, January 8 and 15, 1990, 22-23, 26-27. John David Smith, “Glory: ‘Heroism Writ Large, From People Whom History Had Made Small,’” in Matthew Christopher Hulbert and John C. Inscoe, eds., Writing History with Lightning: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth America (Baton Rouge, 2019), pp. 162-171. Gregory J. W. Urwin, “I Want You to Prove Yourselves Men,” Civil War Times Illustrated, vol. 28, no. 6 (November-December 1989), 42-44, 46-51 Brian Steel Wills, Gone With the Glory: The Civil War in Cinema (Lanham MD, 2007), Ch. 12, pp. 139-53.