Build a movie plot around this: What historical significance does the 54th Massachusetts have? It is considered the first all Negro regiment.
A:
During the American Civil War, the Massachusetts Infantry Regiment engages Confederate forces in the bloody Battle of Antietam. Captain Robert Shaw (Matthew Broderick) is injured in the battle and assumed lost, but is found alive by a gravedigger named John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) and sent to a field hospital. While on medical leave in Boston, Shaw visits his family, and is introduced to Frederick Douglass. Shaw is offered a promotion to the rank of Colonel, and command of the first all-black regiment the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He accepts the responsibility, and asks his childhood friend, Major Cabot Forbes (Cary Elwes) to serve as his second in command. Their first volunteer soldier is another one of Shaw's friends, a bookish freeman named Thomas Searles (Andre Braugher). Other recruits soon follow, including Rawlins, timid freeman Jupiter (Jihmi Kennedy), and Trip (Denzel Washington), an escaped slave who is mistrustful of Shaw. Trip instantly clashes with Thomas, and Rawlins must keep the peace.When the Confederacy issues an order that all black soldiers found in Union uniform will be summarily executed as will their white officers, the opportunity is given to all men in the 54th to take a honorable discharge, but none do. The black soldiers undergo a Draconian training regimen under the harsh supervision of Sgt. Mulcahy (John Finn). Forbes and Shaw argue over the brutality of the training, as the former believes they will never be allowed to fight and will only be used as a manual labor force.When Trip goes AWOL and is caught, Shaw orders him flogged in front of the troops. The scars of his previous beatings as a slave are exposed and this presents a real dilemma for the abolitionist Shaw. While talking to Rawlins, Shaw finds out that Trip had left merely to find suitable shoes to replace his own worn ones. Shaw realizes that supplies are being denied to his soldiers because of their race. He belligerently confronts the quartermaster, Kendric (Richard Riehle), and finds out that indeed...