The Power of Resilience and Sacrifice in 'Glory': Movie Review

History movies have always been controversial for historians. The scholars frequently criticised the values of these films for several reasons, such as; not showing a complete picture of the particular era, ignoring many facts and opinions or portraying events and characters historically inaccurately. However, as an increasing number of historians examine the subject of history movies; they are starting to realize that many of these cultural products can be valuable sources of history. The film Glory, which was released in 1989, also belongs to this category. Edward Zwick’s Glory authentically depicts white officers and African-American soldiers, their perspective of the civil war and their relation to each other. Furthermore, it illustrates social issues and conflicts of the American Civil War that are also relevant today or less known aspects of the Civil War, such as; racism of the north or African-Americans contribution to the war, therefore; it is a useful source of history.

The creators of the movie highly relied on several historical works, such as; Peter Burchard’s One Gallant Rush, Lincoln Kirstein’s Lay This Laurel. Furthermore, Fields and his staff often consulted with the authors, and the film went through several editing processes until it reached the final product. The staff also hired historians as consultants, such as Ray Herbert Jr. and Shelby Foote. Moreover, they also worked with a great number of reenactors of the American Civil War, who made the details of the movie particularly authentic, such as; the uniforms and weapons of the soldiers or the design of the military camp. The combat scenes were especially accurate and spectacular. Joseph T. Glatthar, who wrote an extensive book on the contribution of African-American soldiers in the Civil War, acclaimed the battle scenes the following way. “We see, better than in any other Civil War film, the confusion, brutality, and horror of the battlefield, but also its pageantry and excitement. The viewer cannot help but admire the enormous courage, and a powerful sense of commitment to a cause, that enables these tightly-packed ranks to fight in a seemingly hopeless situation.” Two further editions were created due to the popularity of the film; The True Story of Glory Continues, and Voices of Glory. These special editions contain deleted scenes and interviews of the actors and filmmakers, furthermore; they contain further explanation and correction of the events depicted in Glory, and the detailed description of the future of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry after the Fort Wagner assault, and additional data about the “unequal pay” problem. These details about the film and the production show that the filmmakers had strong intentions and effort to accurately portray the themes they covered in the film, and also provide the actual knowledge about the regiment and its history.

One of the greatest achievements of the movie is a positive, but not a romanticised or biased portrayal of African-Americans. Before Glory Civil War films had an infamous history in that aspect. The most famous films among these movies; The Birth of a Nation, and Gone with the Wind have depicted African-Americans in a fairly negative way, and these two considerably popular cultural products have influenced many other movies on that subject. The Birth of a Nation was a blatantly racist and controversial work, even in the time when it was released, in 1915. The movie portrayed African-Americans as savage, uncivilized persons, who are sexually offensive towards white women, thus, they are a danger for the white society and the resolution of this problem will be the emergence of the Ku-Klux-Klan. This presentation was false and resulted in a bad reputation for the movie amongst historians. Gone with the Wind (1939) was also criticized for its inaccurate representation of African-Americans. They were shown as content, loyal and happy slaves, while; southerners are benevolent and noble slaveholders, which was not the general case in that era.

Glory also has African-American heroes that can be labelled as stereotypical characters. However, one of the aims of the movie is to question these stereotypes about the coloured race. Moreover, researches on African-Americans and the public opinions about them show that the stereotypes and preconceptions that the film depicted were quite realistic and significant. However, all of these heroes of Glory go through a positive change, for instance; Trip reconciles with whites and overcomes his anger or Sharts as an uneducated childish man becomes a proper soldier. This implies that the movie’s aim is not to ridicule or despise African-Americans but to prove that although these stereotypes were often true, however; they were also exaggerated many times by prejudicial whites, but African-Americans were able to arise from their circumstances and prove the whites their valour.

The plot of the movie starts with the gory battle of Antietam, which was the bloodiest fight of the Civil war until that time with twenty-three thousand casualties, on September 17, 1862. The scene effectively displays the horrors of the combat with body parts torn away, cannons and rifles bursting noisily leaving many soldiers dead or wounded on the battlefield. As a result of the Confederate army retreat, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, altering the legal status of three and a half million African-Americans in Confederate states. Moreover, it enabled African-Americans to apply for military duty against the Rebels, resulting in altogether approximately; 179000 men of colour fighting in the side of the Union Army during the Civil war. Consequently, it can be stated that their contribution was remarkable and an important part of the Federal side’s victory.

The film does not elaborate on the political background of the war, however; it is reasonable in the case of a Hollywood movie. The reason for that is that these types of mainstream films are not exclusively made for historians or admirers of a particular historical period or subject, but larger audiences. Therefore, the directors have to concentrate on to entertain and keep the interests of the viewers by not composing the plot overly lengthy, and omitting the detailed descriptions or historian debates about the topic. The following chapter will provide a historical background to the plot of Glory, to have a better understanding of the overall political and social context of the storyline and examine of the movie historically fits into that era.

General Political and Race Relations Background of Glory

Despite the omission of political details of the events in the movie, it is important to highlight that the Northerner’s initial aim was not to abolish slavery but to overcome the rebel states and restore the Union. As Lincoln stated in one of his letters; “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” According to James M. McPherson who is an acknowledged Historian of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and his administration ignored the freedom of the African-Americans at the beginning of the conflict for numerous reasons. In the year 1861, Democrats and the four slave states that remained loyal to the Union would not have promoted a war to enslave the African-Americans. Although the president personally regarded the institution of slavery morally wrong, He also believed that whites and African-Americans cannot live peacefully together, he did not support the endeavour for American citizenship for, and equal social rights of the coloured race and he enthusiastically campaigned for the deportation of them to a potential colony for example; Liberia or Haiti.

However, different approaches emerged in the Northerner’s policy, as the Union Army suffered major casualties and lost several battles. Concurrently, thousands of slaves fled from the Confederate States inside Federal borders, especially in places where Union armies approached. However, Northerner’s policy was not always welcoming towards fugitive African-Americans. According to the Fugitive Slave Law, which was enacted in 1850, runaway slaves, escaping from south to the Northern borders had to be captured and delivered back to their slaveholders by the assistance of the military authorities of the North. As a consequence, this method was in practice at the onset of the Civil war, which obviously showed that the Union side was not the manifestation of equal rights and the abolition of slavery. Instead, they frequently sought the interest of the Confederates, and they had similar grades of prejudice and hostility towards African-Americans as the Southerners.

However, the fact that Union troops cooperated in returning runaway slaves to the side of the enemy was contentious inside and outside military companies, therefore the congress terminated the act, in 1862, March. Furthermore, several officers, most notably General Benjamin Franklin Butler not only refused to help to return the slaves to their masters but they enslaved the refugees and employed them in Union Troops. Confederates had utilized African-American in several kinds of non-military duties such as fortification or artillery battery building, mining or hospital service. Butler was amongst the first to use fugitives as contrabands realizing the immense damage that the confiscation of slaves can cause to the industry of the Confederates. Lincoln accepted Butler’s approach and advocated his policy, which culminated in the two Confiscation Acts in 1861 and 1862. These laws declared the legalization of seizing any Confederate property by Union troops, furthermore; the acts were the forerunners of the Emancipation Proclamation, followed by the Militia Act which was the approval of African-Americans into the Federal army, who had a considerable impact in the military success of the North.

Lincoln had long been drafted the idea of the decree, but he was waiting for a victory on the battlefield because he did not want the impression by the Confederates that his action comes from desperation, and he did not want to demoralize whites and lose loyal states. However, The Militia act of 1862 was a beneficial contract for the war department of Lincoln, and both the northern free and the runaway, former slave African-Americans as well. First of all, slaves knew the southern territories considerably well as the majority of them had been working in the fields all their life. Moreover, slaves were sometimes utilized in camp duties or even used as personal servants of white soldiers, so they knew the location or the size of the Southern troops, which was one of the reasons that Confederates did not prefer to have too many African-American near the army, as a matter of fact; they only authorized slaves in military or combat service in final desperation in the last few weeks of the war. Thus, these runaway slaves, after joining the Union army, could deliver crucial military knowledge to the commanders of the Federal troops. Besides, the war had been going on for two years, the casualties were immense, and the number of the freshly recruit volunteers was constantly decreasing. For this reason, the fresh addition of African-Americans was a crucially important support for the Union army. Especially, that men of colour had the strongest eagerness to join the conflict, as they would fight for their own freedom, the demonstration of their dignity and valour, and to strike back to their former masters and oppressors.

Prior to the war, Northerners did not particularly concern about the social inequalities within whites and African-Americans. Primarily, because comparatively fewer men of colour living in the North than in the South. About half a million lived in the North, and they were living separated from whites so they did not have much contact with each other, and about four million in the latter. Even though many Northerners regarded slavery inhumane and barbarous, they did not acknowledge African-American equal to them, but regarded them with disgust. .Joseph T. Glatthar, who is a professor of History, and author of several books about the military history of the Civil war, stated about the race relations prior to the war that; “Racial prejudice was so powerful that most whites regarded the notion of arming blacks and encouraging them to fight for their freedom as lunacy.” Even those white men who were in command of coloured troops later in the Civil war years had strong racial prejudicial beliefs, though they regularly were young and prominent men and sons of abolitionists, for example; even the idealistic Robert Gould Shaw, who is the protagonist of Glory, held demeaning opinions about African-Americans.

Because the institution of slavery had long been crippled the coloured men, as a consequence; racism became so intense that whites did not expect any positive coming from the other race. After the Proclamation, there was a public complaint about it from Northern society. Joseph T. Glatthar mentioned a letter from a soldier who served in one of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) which demonstrated the resistance of whites towards the Emancipation Proclamation. ”I am as much in favor for the Union as any one but I am not in favor of shedding my blood for the sake of the black tribe although I think Slavery is a ruination to our government.”

The main source of the prejudices was the belief that the whole African-American race is primitive and uncivilized. Many whites even believed that they are more similar to animals than to mankind. Some officers assumed that men of African descent carry attributes that determines them to an oppressed status, they lacked mental toughness and discipline. Their argument was that if they had these characteristics they wouldn’t have been obliged to an inferior and exploited position. Furthermore, these prejudicial officers also believed that African-Americans inclinable for laziness, which means that they are unsuitable for the mental and physical struggles of warfare and camp labor. Moreover, as they are used to the oppressed role, they wouldn’t have the courage to uphold on the battlefield and confront the enemy. Another, one of the most common stereotypes of whites towards men of color is childishness. They were considered to be simple and not having enough self-reliance, which would result that in the combat they would need white officers to oversee them, Furthermore, as African-Americans were regarded as intellectually underdeveloped, therefore they would not be capable of comprehending the complex military tactics. Moreover, because the majority of southern slaves have never been educated, they could not read and write which means that the white officers need to devote extra effort to explain the tactics manual. Another objection against colored men’s enlistment to military service, their widespread public image in white men’s imagination, is savagery. Many Northernerners feared that African-Americans would be uncontrollable, and if they would be armed they might be dangerous to their officers or civilians as well. One officer wrote about that concern the following way: “ I do not believe we can keep the negroes from murdering every thing they come to. Nor were they too certain that they could maintain control of their troops in camp at all times once the government armed them. and in the back of their minds there was always a nagging fear of mutiny.” All in all, it can be stated that both African-American soldiers and white officers who were in charge of the coloured troops had an exceptionally difficult duty, because they both carried extensive prejudices towards the other race, and because they had to serve together throughout the adversities of warfare and camp life, which required them to reconcile the grievances and overcome the preconceptions towards each other.

Conclusion

To conclude, the film Glory has been acclaimed by many historians and movie experts, and it is considered as one of the best movies ever made about the American Civil War. James M. McPherson renowned expert on the topic of the American Civil War complimented the movie in one of his articles; “Can movies teach history? For Glory, the answer is yes. Not only is it the first feature film to treat the role of black soldiers in the American Civil War, but it is also one of the most powerful and historically accurate movies ever made about that war.” The film was produced by Freddie Fields, directed by Edward Zwick and the screenplay was the product of Kevin Jarre. The main actors of the movie were: Denzel Washington as Trip, Matthew Broderick as Shaw, Morgan Freeman as Rawlins, Carry Elwes as Forbes, Jihmi Kennedy as Sharts and Andre Braugher as Searles. The film also received considerable public attention and won three Oscars for; Best Supporting Role (Denzel Washington), Best Cinematography and Best Sound.