Fatally Flawed

Rating: Null/10 (24 January 2002)

Beautifully done film. But, for some inconceivable reason, the director chose to alter the historical roster of the focal Massachusetts 54th Regiment. The second-in-command during the period of the film was not the completely made-up character of "Major Forbes" but the actual person, Edward Needles Hallowell. After Robert Gould Shaw's death at Ft. Wagner, Col. Hallowell commanded the regiment until the end of the war. This alteration of fact is still all the more bewildering considering the Hallowell family's considerable role in the Massachusetts Black Regiments. Edward Hallowell's brother Norwood Penrose Hallowell was Colonel of the second Massachusetts black regiment, the 55th and his brother William Penrose Hallowell, its adjutant. The facts are clearly laid out in Peter Burchard's, "One Gallant Rush", St. Martin's Press, New York, the book from which the movie was drawn. Makers of purportedly historical films have a responsibility to portray facts---not imagined fictions.