Behind the Scenes: Glory (Zwick, 1989) with Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington

The compelling true story of men from different worlds bonded by a war that threatened their nation. The story of the historic 54th Massachusetts Infantry and the man who led them to battle, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. The story of the men who fought for freedom and found glory. Is it true there's to be a colored regiment? So it seems. Then I am your first volunteer. They were inspired by Shaw to fight for one cause. They have risked their lives to be here. They have given up their freedom. They were torn apart by their different pasts. I am a free man, as was my father before me. Oh, you're free? Yes. Oh, good. Well, why don't you move your free black bus and hold up there, bub? Ain't nobody said nothing to you, pap. It's all right. I'll be fine over here. Where about you from? I'm from around Tennessee. I ran away when I was 12 years old. I ain't never looked back. What you doing since then? I run for president. I win, though. They were ordered to do the impossible. A good man can fire three aimed shots in a minute. It is my job to get these men ready. Marching is probably all they'll ever get to do. And they gotta know that nobody's gonna let them fight. They were forced to struggle for respect. You men enlisted in this regiment, on the understanding that you would be paid the regular army wage of $13 a month. This morning, I have been notified that since you are a colored regiment, you will be paid $10 a month. Colored soldiers stop a bullet just as good as a white one, and for less money, too. Yeah, Uncle Abe got himself a real bargain here. For director Ed Zwick, award-winning creator of 30-Something and the director of the motion picture About Last Night, Glory was a film he'd been waiting to make. I've always been attracted to stories in which personal drama is played out against larger canvases. The production of Glory intrigued and brought together some of Hollywood's most talented actors, including Matthew Broderick, the star of Biloxi Blues, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and War Games. It's our heritage. It's an American story. For Denzel Washington, fresh off his Academy Award nomination for Cry Freedom, this project was a revelation. I have to admit that I was somewhat ignorant of the fact that a lot of blacks, hundreds of thousands of blacks, fought in the Civil War. After Morgan Freeman celebrated work in Lean on Me and an Oscar nomination for Streetwise, he knew he wanted to make Glory. Most of my professional life, I have wanted to do things that involved American history. Actor Cary Elwes, whose work includes the comedy hit The Princess Bride, was excited by the possibilities the film presented. It's dealing with an issue that hasn't really been explored in film. I think the statements it has to make will be important ones. Producer Freddie Field spent more than four years bringing this epic motion picture to the screen and always felt it had to be done. It's important to young people of America to know what this is all about and still be entertained by it. The first challenge in making this epic was 19th century authenticity. Civil War historian Ray Herbeck Jr. was one of those who helped recreate the monumental battle scenes. I bring in thousands, sometimes, of reenactors who are members of living history groups, people that research and create their own impressions as we call them, of 19th century people. I want more disorganization. I want everybody kind of crouching. We have a lot of reenactors, guys who are historically very knowledgeable about this period, this war. They refight it all the time. And I said, what does a sergeant major do? And they said, well, pretty much whatever he wants to do. Never before has a film recreated history so accurately and on such a grand scale. For the makers of Glory, a certain pride was felt on the set and seen in every detail of the mammoth undertaking. As you take, you're starting to back up, and bang, it goes, which sends you. Okay? Like any epic scale motion picture, the special effects and stunt work are both essential and not without risk. The filming schedule of Glory was further complicated by night shooting and the huge number of actors. I have about a total of 32 stuntmen that's here tonight. That's a lot. All from Los Angeles, all Hollywood. Hollywood's finest. I had a friend, a writer, who told me when I was going to start working on this, he said, you have to be careful with the Civil War because you're taking something down from the altar, and you have to treat it right. And for Denzel Washington, the historical implications of this tale were never far from his thoughts. Very few people know that it was a war that more Americans were killed than in the First and Second World War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War put together. A time's coming when we're going to have to ante up. Ante up and kick in like men. Like men! Any picture about war and men coming together to form a unit is a bonding scene. You are hereby awarded the rank of Sergeant Major. Hip hip! Hooray! Hip hip! Hooray! Congratulations. I ain't sure I'm wanting this, Colonel. I know exactly how you feel. The theme has most to do with dignity, a dignity that transcends race. It has to do with a number of stories of young boys becoming men. After the bonds of brotherhood have pulled them together, the men of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry are ready to prove their valor. That's right, Highness. Ain't no dream. We run away a slave, but we come back fighting men. There! Hip hip! Hooray! It's a very optimistic film because it shows how they, in spite of their differences, in spite of their hatreds, can come together and can stand as one. The story of men who marched into battle for freedom and found glory. People often ask why the Civil War started at Fort Sumter. One reason is because it's in Charleston, and Charleston was an absolute hotbed of secessionist activity. Another reason for this is that, and people don't always know this, Fort Sumter's an island, and it's an island in the middle of the harbor. The Union commander, as secession has gone through and tensions are building, this Union commander in charge of these, I think only 80 or so Union troops, moved his troops to this island because it was more easy to defend. Fort Sumter becomes the first great test of who's going to blink first. The Southerners are unhappy because the Union troops have taken refuge in a fort in the middle of Charleston Harbor. They want them to evacuate the fort. Major Anderson refuses, and Lincoln decides in what turns out to be a controversial decision to reinforce or try to reinforce the fort. The Confederates, who know everything that's going on in Washington at this point, learn of this, and they actually fire on the fort before Lincoln can reinforce it. Jefferson Davis ordered the Confederate commander, who was a guy with a great name, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, to fire, to take the fortress by force. And on, I believe it's April 12, he fired at 4.30 in the morning. Bombardment lasted for 34 hours. No one actually was killed in this on either side, so it's this kind of ironic bloodless beginning to an amazingly bloody war. Lincoln chooses to interpret this as an act of war. Now, in this sense, I always argue, both sides, in a sense, chose war over peace at that point. The Southerners are pushing the envelope by seizing not only Sumter, but they seized Fort in Texas, they seized forts in Florida, in Alabama, and Lincoln figures it's got to end somewhere. And so he says, well, we'll take Sumter as the case. We won't let that just go by the way, so to speak. And when the Confederates fire on it, Lincoln takes it as an act of war. And he chooses to interpret it deliberately that way. He could have taken it just as sort of a minor riot or an incident, but he chooses to take it as an act of war. In the summer of 1863, things are not going well for the South. Lee decides it's time to take a step that will push the war towards some sort of conclusion. And he decides that the way to do that is to go north and engage the Army of the Potomac in a major battle on northern grounds that will force the North to finally recognize Southern independence. In a curious twist of fate, the two armies meet at a little town in Gettysburg, with the South approaching the city from the North and the North approaching the city from the South. It's not a battle that is carefully planned. It's absolutely justified that Gettysburg is the most well-known battle of the war, the most famous battle of the war. It's the only battle that the Union won in the East unequivocally. It was Lee's major blunder and a fantastic victory for the Union forces. It is a massive battle. It took place over three days. It was a desperate battle. It didn't have to go the way that it did. The battle is the longest and bloodiest battle of the war. It, in many respects, epitomizes everything about Civil War battles. There are charges, there are failures, there are everything that one wants. Heroism, luck, the whole thing plays out in a fateful three days, beginning with the Confederates driving the Union troops back through the town of Gettysburg to defensive positions south of the city and ending, of course, with the famous charge by George Pickett on July 3rd of 1863, a charge that most people think was doomed to failure, and yet, in a very real sense, it was Lee rolling the dice one last time. Pickett's men have to march over a quarter of a mile of open field. There's no cover for them, trees or anything. They're just a gigantic moving target. And exactly at the place where they come in range of artillery, they are fired upon and blown apart. And it's sometimes called the Confederate high-water mark because that is the point when the water starts to recede, when the Confederacy itself starts to recede. The Confederate Army is not broken, but has received an enormously bloody arm, has lost much of its valued officer corps, and will never again take a major offensive action against the Union Army. The South has lost the war on the 4th of July, 1863. When President Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves in 1863, he says he puts the Civil War on the side of the angels. With one stroke of the pen, he unites his goal of the Union forever with the battle cry of freedom. After two years of war, he opens up his Army of the Free to include black soldiers. The first regiment of free black Americans to be recruited is the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers. Many doubt they will make good soldiers, so they are ordered to the backwaters of conflict, coastal lowlands and swamps in the southeast. Much more than victory depends on their performance. The men of the 54th embrace the challenge. They see Lincoln's side of the angels as their side, the side of the swamp angels. At Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina, they lead a doomed attack of 7,000 white federal soldiers. They prove the doubters wrong at a high price. The first recorded praise for their heroic assault comes from the enemy. Confederate Lieutenant Iredell Jones writes that morning, the Negroes fought gallantly and were headed by as brave a colonel as ever lived. He is 27-year-old Robert Gould Shaw, who dies in the attack. As rebels in Fort Wagner bury Shaw and his men in a mass grave, the spirit of the fallen begins to rise above the bloody ramparts. It reaches across the sands and beckons survivors to fight again, to overcome all odds, all doubts, to again answer the call from a man whose spirit inspired them in the beginning, a former slave whose very life embodies the issues of the war. Frederick Douglass is the most prominent black American of the era. He has convinced Lincoln to use black Americans as soldiers. We are striking the rebels with our soft white hand, he says, when we should be striking with the iron hand of the black man. Hundreds in New York enlist at rallies hosted by Douglass. His first recruit is his youngest son, 18-year-old Charles Douglass. He and his 20-year-old brother Louis are printers, working at their father's abolitionist newspaper in Rochester. Both enlist in March of 1863. Recruiters across the North and Canada circulate the printed words of Douglass to fill the ranks with others. Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S. Let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pockets. And there's no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States. After drilling three months near Boston at Reedville Camp, the 54th makes a stunning entry when it disembarks from a transport ship and marches into occupied Beaufort, South Carolina on June 3, 1863. Charlotte Fortin, a young black American teacher of former slaves, watches. She writes in her journal, It is a splendid-looking regiment, an honor to the race. A volunteer from the North, she is part of an ongoing educational program begun in the coastal islands when first occupied by federal troops in 1861. She meets the young, idealistic Colonel Shaw, who shares her views that education is the key to unlock the future for the freed slaves. After a dress parade, they have tea together, the first of several social engagements over the next month. Federal General Quincy Gilmore launches an expedition against Charleston. Because the war started there with the firing on Fort Sumter, Charleston has high symbolic value to both sides. The Confederates ring the harbor and its islands with strong forts. Chief among these is Fort Wagner on Morris Island. A mountain of sand bristling with large cannon, it looms as a challenge to the Federals. On July 16, 1863, Gilmore lands his army on Morris Island to assault Fort Wagner. The 54th is part of a diversionary attack on adjacent James Island. Their attack is intended to divert Confederate attention from Gilmore. But the rebels launch a surprise counterattack on James Island. It threatens to trap an entire white regiment, the 10th Connecticut. Three companies of the 54th fight hard to slow the Confederate assault. It allows the Connecticut men to retreat to safety. The 54th loses 10 men killed and 30 wounded, including Quartermaster Sergeant Vogelsang. But the regiment has won its first laurels. The 54th volunteers to spearhead an attack against Fort Wagner by 12 white Federal regiments. As night descends on July 18, 1863, a massive naval bombardment of the fort ends and the troops advance. Confederate cannon from Wagner and the entire harbor decimate the ranks. The assault force suffers 1,515 casualties, with the 54th losing 247 of 600 who charged. Last to leave the parapet of the fort under fire is the lion of the regiment, Sergeant Major Lewis Douglas, son of Frederick Douglas. Lewis writes his fiancée, Amelia Logwin, of Syracuse, New York. The far rest of your city is wounded. George Washington is missing. Jacob Carter is missing. Charles Reason, wounded. Charles Whiting, Charles Creamer, all wounded. I had my sword sheath blown away while on the parapet of the fort, he writes. Swept down like chaff still, our men went on and on. This regiment has established its reputation as a fighting regiment. Not a man flinched, though it was a trying time. Men fell all around me. A shell would explode in clear a space of 20 feet. Our men would close up again, but it was no use. We had to retreat, which was a very hazardous undertaking. How I got out of that fight alive, I cannot tell. But I am here. Lewis scales the deadly slope with Colonel Shaw, and in the thunderous voice of his father shouts, Come, boys, come. Let's fight for God and Governor Andrew. Shaw dives on the parapet. Sergeant William Kearney of Company C holds a flag aloft atop the fort. He takes wound in both legs, his chest, and right arm. As the firing dies down, he slumps the outer slope. Kearney and 147 other wounded now face a grisly journey back to the Union lines in the dark. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Hallowell, second in command, is shot in the groin, but manages to pull himself to safety. Private Isom Ampey of Company K, age 21, searches in the dark for his older brother Thomas. Both are farmers from Newport, Indiana. Only Isom will return home. Thomas is buried with Colonel Shaw and 30 others. Kearney crawls on one knee through the darkness, carrying the tattered flag. A deeply religious youth of 22, he has interrupted plans for the ministry to fight with the 54th. He undoubtedly implores his Creator for strength. Long after his comrades reach safety, Kearney staggers into the crowded lamp-lit tent with the flag. Cheers resound as he says, The old flag never touched the ground, boys. Sergeant William Kearney is the first black American soldier to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. When the burial truce ends, General Gilmore lays siege to Fort Wagner with 10,000 men and a naval flotilla. Because only a few officers and about 400 men remain of the battered 54th, Gilmore assigns them to digging trenches and guarding engineers. Lewis Douglas helps officers to organize this fatigued duty. They await new recruits and returning wounded to bring the regiment back up to fighting strength. Not all wounded of the 54th will be able to return. More than 50 soldiers are captured in the assault on Wagner, and half of these are injured. They are held in Coal Castle, Pinckney, a prison in the harbor, and in the Charleston jail in the shadow of a gallows. Among them is First Sergeant Robert Simmons, sighted again for gallantry atop Wagner. He has a wounded arm. All face the uncertain fate of black soldiers in Confederate hands. The wounded who are not captured are moved by sea down to Beaufort. Sergeant Kearney and Lieutenant Colonel Hallowell are among them. A silent crowd of freed slaves watches the sad procession as the wounded are moved from ship to waiting wagons. The 54th had given them pride and hope when it arrived in June. Now they want a help. Many bring beef and chicken broth. Others help with bandages. They are taken to the new federal hospital at Hilton Head. Charlotte Fortin hurries there by rowboat from her school at St. Helena, six miles away. Tonight comes news, she writes. Oh, so sad, so heart-sickening. It is too terrible, too terrible to write. We can only hope it may not all be true that our noble, beautiful young colonel is killed and the regiment cut to pieces. I cannot, cannot believe it. And yet I know it may be so. But, oh, I am stunned. Sick at heart. I can scarcely write. Thank heaven they fought bravely. It was with a full heart that I sewed up bullet holes and bayonet cuts, she writes. Sometimes I found a jacket that told a sad tale, so torn to pieces that it was far past mending. The death of Shaw hurts her. She recalls him as a much-loved friend. It seems very, very hard that the best and the noblest must be the earliest called away. She writes letters for those too injured to write themselves. She recalls one 19-year-old from Michigan. He's very badly wounded in both legs and there is a ball in the stomach. It is thought that it cannot be extracted, but he utters no complaint, and it is touching to see his gratitude for the least kindness. He was an only son and had come away against his mother's will. He would not have her written to until he was better. Poor fellow. That will never be in this world. Twenty-four of the wounded from Fort Wagner die. Others slowly return to siege duty on Morris Island. The rebels inside Fort Wagner put up a stubborn defense against the ongoing bombardment. Supplies and new troops are brought in at night by rowboat. Wagner looms ever stronger. Though anxious for action, the regiment does its duty with the shovel as well as the rifle musket, while engineers design and build five parallel lines of trenches, each successively closer to Fort Wagner. They prefer to work with the 54th who complain less about the manual labor. They are also steadier under the nearly constant artillery and sniper fire, but the Swamp Angels prefer action. Louis Douglas, tired of the trenches, writes, Should I fall in the next fight, killed or wounded, I hope to fall with my face to the foe. Miles of trenches with 18 bomb proofs and 89 cannon emplacements are dug. 46,000 sandbags, gabions, and fascines are filled with earth, and wharves and landings are built, all by the labor of General Gilmore's army. But fully half of the labor is done by his comparatively few black troops, specifically the 54th Massachusetts and the newly arrived 3rd United States Colored Troops. Most of the work is done at night under fire. During the day, the tired troops try to rest in sweltering tent cities. The humid summer temperatures seem to seldom dip below 100 degrees. Flies and mosquitoes breed fevers. The stench of hastily buried dead pervades the sorry camps. Finally, on September 7, 1863, after 58 days of siege and two failed assaults, 740 beleaguered rebels evacuate Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg behind it. Gilmore's army occupies the forts. Curious members of the 54th and other survivors from the failed assaults inspect the massive sand hill that defied them so long. They move in and set up camp. They turn the guns toward the enemy, emplace new ones, and open fire. Some say the 54th took its pet name from the Swamp Angel, a rifle cannon that lobbed 200-pound shells into Charleston. The 54th helped install it in a marsh between James and Morris Island. By December 20, more than 20 shells a day hit Charleston. Fort Sumter is reduced to a defiant pile of rubble. On January 20, 1864, 120 new recruits bring the 54th Massachusetts up nearly to full strength. Among these is 25-year-old John Gooseberry, a seaman from St. Catharines, Canada, who serves as Company E musician. Also arriving is Harrison Lee, then a strapping 21-year-old laborer from New Bedford, Massachusetts. He joins Company D. The men of the 54th see the result of their steadfastness in the arrival of other new black units, such as the 3rd United States Colored Troops. Across the nation, more than 100 regiments are raised, of the more than 179,000 who serve. At least 33,000 never come home. And home for the 54th is an area of constant concern. As the siege drags on, they get depressing letters. Families write of financial hardship because since enlistment the men have never been paid. They had been promised $13 a month, which white soldiers received. But federal agents had offered only $10 a month, the wage allocated to colored laborers. And this was further reduced by a $3 clothing allowance, leaving only $7 a month. A joke. So from the first, they have refused the insulting $10 rate. While on Morris Island, they again refuse. Yet they stay on duty. They want to prove that black Americans are equal as soldiers and citizens. Despite the absence of pay, the men remain enthused about the regiment and its purpose. Louis Douglas writes to his fiancee, I must bid you farewell should I be killed. Remember, if I die, I die in a good cause. I wish we had 100,000 colored troops. We would put an end to this war. On January 29, 1864, the 54th at last heads for action. They are reunited with Colonel Hallowell, now fully recovered and in command. They join the invasion force of 7,000 troops under General Seymour. Target is Tallahassee, capital of Florida. After landing at Jacksonville, the army marches unopposed along a railroad line connecting the two cities. The rebels make their stand at the crossroads of Olustee Station. In a swamp 35 miles west of Jacksonville near a large lake called Ocean Pond, 5,500 rebel infantry chew up Seymour's regiments one at a time as he feeds them into the battle piecemeal. Fighting stretches across swampy fields, coastal pine woods, and marshy clearings. Musketry swells and rolls along a battle line a mile wide. The rebels gain more momentum when the 7th Connecticut is driven from the field. Confederate cavalry runs down the fleeing troops. The 54th hears the roar of battle far ahead and pushes toward the field. It is met by hundreds of retreating Federal soldiers and wounded, black and white. An aide gallops up to Colonel Hallowell and shouts, For God's sake, Colonel, double quick or the day is lost. The 54th, under heavy marching order with full packs, flops them and hastens to the front. Once again, the swamp angels are marching at the double quick to the rescue. The 54th arrives on the field just as the entire Confederate line advances, trumbling the remaining Federal regiments. The 7th New Hampshire, 7th Connecticut, 47th, 48th, and 115th New York, plus the now battered 8th U.S. Colored Troops. The 8th U.S. Colored Troops loses 300 men and its colonel in their baptism of fire. The 54th forms line of battle and fights a delaying action. It allows the rest of the Federals to escape what is seen as certain destruction. In a desperate move, Colonel Hallowell orders the Color Guard to advance 150 paces to rally the line and slow the Confederates. Of the eight members of the Color Guard, only four are left. But with the flag shredded and the Color Sergeant's hand nearly shot away, they advance the line, and it holds. The men shout, Three cheers for Massachusetts and seven dollars a month. Charles Lennox, a Color Sergeant of Company A, a 38-year-old barber from Watertown, Massachusetts, is among the Color Guard. Beside him, Preston Hellman, Color Corporal of Company E, a 30-year-old carpenter from Leone, Michigan. Time after time, the 54th fires volleys to stem another Confederate advance while the routed Federal Army continues to retire. The regiment puts eight companies into line, totaling 497 men and 13 officers. Of these, 86 are killed, wounded, or missing by the fall of Eden. Robert Jones is missing and presumed dead. A 20-year-old member of Company I, he is a farmer from Hamilton, Ohio. Sergeant Thomas Bowman, 27, and Sergeant George Lipscomb, both of Company I, are boatmen from Cincinnati. Both survive Olustee, but Bowman, who holds his sword in their 10-type, is wounded. And First Sergeant Stephen Swayoff of Company F is wounded, but cited for his coolness and bravery. He is promoted to second lieutenant on March 11, 1864, making him the first black officer commissioned in a Massachusetts regiment. On the same day, Sergeant Vogelsang is promoted to second lieutenant. A newspaper reporter with General Seymour's Army reports, Had it not been for the glorious 54th Massachusetts, the whole brigade would have been captured or annihilated. This was the only regiment that rallied, broke the rebel ranks, and saved us. The 54th marches 110 miles in 108 hours, fights three hours in a stand-up battle, and then, upon arriving in Jacksonville, finds the train of wounded has broken down outside of town. Fatigued and worn, it marches out and attaches ropes to the cars. The men pull the train 10 miles to safety. Charles Lennox writes only three days later, We have been in another battle and were defeated. The 54th fought bravely, being the last to leave the field. Federal losses amount to 1,860 men, 34% of the invasion force. The rebels lose 946 men. On April 8, 1864, the 54th returns to Morris Island, where the encirclement around Charleston continues. The tedium of camp life and occasional sorties during the ongoing bombardment is broken on September 28, 1864, when the 54th Massachusetts, at last, is paid. After refusing to accept the colored laborer wage of $10 a month, the regiment is paid the full and promised amount of $13 for each of the 18 months served. Federal recognition of black American soldiers as being equal to whites is, at last, official. Final skirmishes involving elements of the 54th Massachusetts stretch over the remaining five months of the war. On November 30, 1864, the Battle of Honey Hill, South Carolina, rages just north of Savannah. Their last fight occurs at Boykins Mill, South Carolina, west of Charleston, on April 18, 1865, nine days after the war effectively ends with Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Virginia. In both engagements, a total of seven men are killed and 50 wounded. On February 20, 1865, elements of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts, its sister regiment, march in triumph with the Union Army into Charleston. But victory is bittersweet. They find the Charleston jail empty. Fifty-two comrades, imprisoned there 19 months, had been moved to a stockade at Florence, South Carolina. Two weeks later, 20 are released. The rest are dead. Among them is Sergeant Robert Simmons, who did not survive amputation of his wounded arm. Of the regiment's roster, 213 die from battle, imprisonment, or disease. 394 are wounded, and 57 are listed as missing. This totals 664 casualties of the 1,354 men who served in the regiment, nearly 50%. And yet, when the victorious Union Armies pass in the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. at the war's end, no black regiments are invited, though they comprise 10% of the forces then under arms. The 54th returns to Boston, Massachusetts to a heroic welcome on August 20, 1865, and is mustered out of existence.