Glory is a 1989 American epic historical war drama film directed by Edward Zwick about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the Union Army's earliest African American regiments in the American Civil War. It stars Matthew Broderick as Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the regiment's commanding officer and Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman as fictional members of the 54th. The screenplay by Kevin Jarre was based on the books Lay This Laurel (1973) by Lincoln Kirstein and One Gallant Rush (1965) by Peter Burchard and the personal letters of Shaw. The film depicts the soldiers of the 54th from the formation of their regiment to their heroic actions at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner.

Glory was produced by Freddie Fields Productions and distributed by Tri-Star Pictures in the United States. It premiered in limited release in the United States on December 15, 1989, and in wide release on February 16, 1990, grossing $27 million worldwide on an $18 million budget. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards and won three, with Washington winning Best Supporting Actor in addition to receiving the corresponding Golden Globe, while Freddie Francis was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography. The film won awards from the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, the Political Film Society, and the NAACP Image Awards.

In 2025, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."

Plot During the American Civil War, Captain Robert Gould Shaw is injured at the Battle of Antietam and returns home to Boston on medical leave. Shaw accepts promotion to Colonel commanding the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first black regiments in the Union Army. He asks his friend, Cabot Forbes, to serve as his second in command. Their first volunteer is a mutual friend, Thomas Searles, a bookish, free African-American. Other recruits include John Rawlins, Jupiter Sharts, Trip, and a mute boy drummer.

After the Emancipation Proclamation, the men of the 54th are told the Confederacy will execute any black soldiers captured in Union uniform along with their white officers. Despite this threat, the 54th's recruits turn down an offer to be honorably discharged and undergo rigorous training under Sergeant-Major Mulcahy.

Trip is arrested while AWOL. After having him flogged, Shaw learns Trip left camp to replace his worn out shoes. Shaw confronts the base's racist quartermaster, who is holding back their supplies. When the men realize the Federal government pays black soldiers about three-quarters the salary of white soldiers, Trip encourages the men to refuse their pay. Shaw tears up his pay stub in solidarity. In recognition of his mentorship of the younger soldiers, and his advice to Shaw regarding the thoughts and morale of the men, Rawlins is promoted to Sergeant-Major.

Once trained, the 54th comes under the command of General Charles Harker and is ordered by Colonel James Montgomery to sack and burn Darien, Georgia. Shaw initially refuses, but agrees under threat of being relieved. Tired of seeing his men used for manual labor and raids on civilians he advises Harker and Montgomery he will report their profiteering to the war department unless the 54th is given a combat assignment.

The regiment goes into battle at James Island, South Carolina and repels a Confederate attack. Thomas is wounded in the action but saves Trip's life. Shaw offers Trip the honor of bearing the regimental flag in battle. He declines, not believing the war will result in a better life for slaves.

General George Crockett Strong informs his regimental commanders of a major campaign to secure a foothold at Charleston Harbor, and describes the initial attack at Morris Island which requires a frontal assault on Fort Wagner, whose only landward approach is a strip of open beach. Shaw volunteers the 54th. The night before the battle, the black soldiers conduct a religious service, give thanks and seek God's help. The next morning the 54th deploys for the assault to the cheers of white Union troops who had scorned them earlier.

The 54th suffers heavy losses in a daytime assault, and takes cover in the dunes until sundown. Attempting to rally his stalled men, Shaw is killed. Trip lifts the flag, and leads survivors toward the fort, brandishing the flag until he is mortally wounded. Forbes leads a party into the fort's outer defenses where Charlie Morse is killed, and Thomas is wounded. A small number of survivors, including Forbes, Rawlins, Thomas, and Jupiter, come face to face with a Confederate gun and the screen fades to black, implying their deaths.

After sun up the next day, Confederate soldiers remove the bodies of Union soldiers from the beach, raise the Confederate flag over the fort, and bury the corpses in a mass grave. Shaw's body slides into the excavation and comes to rest next to Trip's.

An epilogue reveals that although Fort Wagner was never captured, the courage displayed by the 54th led to the Union Army accepting thousands of Black men for combat. President Abraham Lincoln credited the move with helping to turn the tide of the war.

Cast

Matthew Broderick as Colonel Robert Gould Shaw Denzel Washington as Private Trip Cary Elwes as Major Cabot Forbes Morgan Freeman as Sergeant Major John Rawlins Andre Braugher as Corporal Thomas Searles Jihmi Kennedy as Private Jupiter Sharts Cliff DeYoung as Colonel James Montgomery Alan North as Governor John Albion Andrew John Finn as Sergeant Major Mulcahy Mark Margolis as 10th Connecticut Soldier RonReaco Lee as Mute Drummer Boy Donovan Leitch as Captain Charles Fessenden Morse Bob Gunton as General Charles Garrison Harker Jay O. Sanders as General George Crockett Strong Raymond St. Jacques as Frederick Douglass Richard Riehle as Quartermaster JD Cullum as Henry Sturgis Russell Christian Baskous as Edward L. Pierce Peter Michael Goetz as Francis Shaw Jane Alexander as Sarah Blake Sturgis Shaw (uncredited)

Production Development and script

The title of the film recalls the "glory" for which the July 28, 1863, edition of the weekly Columbus Enquirer reported that First-Sergeant Robert John Simmons, mortally wounded at Battery Wagner, came to fight (Simmons himself wrote, in an account of the Battle of Grimball's Landing that was published in the New York Tribune on December 23, 1863: "God has protected me through this, my first fiery, leaden trial, and I do give Him the glory").

Lincoln Kirstein had first approached Lloyd Fonvielle to write the script. Fonvielle was too in awe of Kirstein to collaborate effectively with him and introduced Kirstein to his friend, Kevin Jarre, who had worked on Rambo: First Blood Part II; they were originally going to write the script together, but Fonvielle got tied up in another project, leaving Jarre to write the script on his own.

A Civil War buff since he was a child, Jarre met with Kirstein and talked about the 54th. As Jarre stated: "Lincoln’s interest was deeper. It related to his whole philosophy about surrendering yourself to something bigger, some larger cause. He’d always wanted to make a movie about the 54th".

Jarre's inspiration for writing the film came from viewing the monument to Colonel Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in Boston Common. His screenplay was based on several sources, including the books Brave Black Regiment - History of the fifty-forth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (1891) by the 54th's Captain Luis F. Emilio, Lincoln Kirstein's Lay This Laurel (1973), and Peter Burchard's One Gallant Rush (1965), as well as the personal letters of Robert Gould Shaw.

Jarre moved into Room 421 at the Gramercy Park Hotel and worked around the clock, writing the script in a few weeks on spec.

Kirstein showed the script to producer James Ivory of Merchant Ivory Productions. Ivory liked the script but wanted Ruth Prawer Jhabvala to give it a rewrite. According to Fonvielle, Kirstein then got up, shook Ivory’s hand warmly, pulled him to his feet, said, “Jim, thanks so much for coming down,” and ushered him out the front door.

The script was then sent to director Bruce Beresford, who committed to do it and brought in producer Freddie Fields, who then set up a deal at Columbia Pictures, but when David Puttnam left Columbia, pre-production had stopped. Beresford left the project, and Fields then took the script to Tri-Star. The studio agreed to do the film and hired Edward Zwick as director.

Filming Exterior filming took place primarily in Massachusetts and Georgia. The culminating battle scene of Fort Wagner was filmed on the beaches of Jekyll Island, Georgia. Opening scenes meant to portray the Battle of Antietam show volunteer military reenactors filmed at a major engagement at the Gettysburg battlefield. The scenes depicting the Battle of Grimball's Landing were filmed at Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park. Later in the war, the 54th Massachusetts did fight at the Battle of Olustee, but it is not depicted in the movie. Zwick did not want to turn Glory "into a black story with a more commercially convenient white hero". Actor Morgan Freeman noted: "We didn't want this film to fall under that shadow. This is a picture about the 54th Regiment, not Colonel Shaw, but at the same time the two are inseparable". Zwick hired the writer Shelby Foote as a technical adviser. Foote later became widely known for his contributions to Ken Burns' PBS nine-episode documentary, The Civil War (1990).

On February 16, 1989, the body of a middle-aged man was discovered on the film's set in Savannah, about a day after his death. Described as having a Middle Eastern appearance, with no apparent signs of suffering a violent death, he was never positively identified.

Music

Glory original motion picture soundtrack was released by Virgin Records on January 11, 1990. The score for the film was composed and orchestrated by James Horner in association with the Boys Choir of Harlem. Jim Henrikson edited the film's music, while Shawn Murphy mixed the score.

Historical sources

Monograph A nonfiction study of the regiment first appeared in 1965 and was republished in paperback in January 1990 by St. Martin's Press under the title One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment. The book, by Peter Burchard, expands on how the 54th Massachusetts developed as battle-ready soldiers. Summarizing the historical events, the book provides events surrounding the aftermath of the first black Union regiment and how it influenced the outcome of the war.

Release

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95%, based on 60 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's consensus states: "Bolstered by exceptional cinematography, powerful storytelling, and an Oscar-winning performance by Denzel Washington, Glory remains one of the finest Civil War movies ever made." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film holds a score of 78/100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.