From my brief introduction of the film at the Library Of Congress in 2012.

Rating: 9/10 (30 April 2013)

GLORY, is the award winning biography and drama of the first African- American unit of ex-slaves and freemen to fight and die for everyone's freedom from bondage. It was also scheduled to play as a tribute to the 150th Anniversary of The Battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland. While researching films and the Civil War I could not find a better feature that had a scene of Antietam, the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with 23,000 casualties on both sides. In the opening scene of tonight's picture at Antietam you will see battle tactics as old as the Roman Legions that used to march side-by- side into the face the enemy. Which takes a lot more bravery than hiding behind a rock, but they eventually learned the costs for those tactics were too high. Historic and modern connections to Antietam include a who's who of Civil War legends: General Robert E. Lee led the army of Northern Virginia and George McClellan the Union Army. Famously serving under McClellan was General Hooker and General Ambrose Burnside whose nickname gave us the word we use today sideburns; and Abner Doubleday who invented baseball. They were all there, as well as Captain Robert Gould Shaw, the witness and story teller of tonight's film.
I've also walked that part of Antietam battlefield known as Bloody Lane. I will never forget Ken Burn's documentary, The Civil War (which came out a year after Glory) saying you could walk from one end to the other, over a quarter-of-a-mile, over the dead bodies and never touch the earth.
And even though the battle was a draw, the North lost more lives and had more wounded. The hero that saved the South from a total defeat that day was Culpeper born and raised General A.P. Hill who lead the reinforcements.
The issues of emancipation and military service were intertwined from the start of the Civil War. News from Fort Sumter set off a rush by free black men to enlist in U.S. military units. They were turned away, however, because a Federal law dating from 1792 barred Negroes from bearing arms for the U.S. army (although they had served in the American Revolution and in the War of 1812). In Boston disappointed would-be volunteers met and requested that the Government modify its laws to permit their enlistment.
The Lincoln administration wrestled with the idea of authorizing the recruitment of black troops, concerned that such a move would prompt the border states to secede. By mid-1862, however, the escalating number of former slaves (contrabands), the declining number of white volunteers, and the increasingly needs of the Union Army pushed the Government into reconsidering the ban. Soon after the Union Army turned back Lee's first invasion of the North at Antietam, the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, and black recruitment was pursued in earnest. But that's only the opening scene of tonight's moving story. Glory is a 1989 American dramatic war film directed by Edward Zwick and starring a then 27 year old Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes and Morgan Freeman. The screenplay was based on the personal letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw who was 24 at the start of our story. Shaw was also at the nearby Battle Of Cedar Mountain. Earlier this week I found on-line some of his 200 letters now held at the Harvard University Archives. Here is a copy of one Shaw wrote from Culpeper when he was here 150 years ago. Glory is a celebration of a little-known act of mass courage during the War. Simply put, the heroes involved were long ignored by history due to racism. Those heroes were the all-black members of the 54th, headed by Col. Shaw, the son of an influential abolitionist (played by an uncredited Jane Alexander). Despite the fact that the Civil War is ostensibly being fought on their behalf, the black soldiers were denied virtually every privilege and amenity that is matter of course for their white counterparts; and they were given the most menial and demeaning of tasks. The unofficial leaders of the group are gravedigger John Rawlins (played by Morgan Freeman) and fugitive slave Trip (played by Denzel Washington), respectively representing the brains and heart of the organization. The 54th acquit them selves valiantly at Fort Wagner, South Carolina, charging a fortification manned by some 1,000 Confederates. (Flag bearer Sgt. William Harvey Carney was earliest African American Medal of Honor recipient for his actions at Ft. Hood) As the film approaches its climax, with James Horner's music, it's consumed almost entirely in the kind of pageantry that was once director John Ford's specialty. While one can quibble with aspects of the film, all are outweighed by the value of this moving picture in more widely disseminating an invaluable piece of history. By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war. In fact more American's of every color died in the Civil War than in all other American wars from the Revolution through the Korean War combined. No wonder the damage done is still healing. In conclusion, tonight even the ground we meet on, Mount Pony, was a Civil War site. The men and women who lived in the area 150 years ago are now gone, but their stories live on when we remember them.