50 Fun Facts About Glory (1989 Film)

Which actor won his first Academy Award for playing the defiant Private Trip in Glory?

Denzel Washington took Best Supporting Actor for the role, then became a two-time winner twelve years later as a corrupt detective in Training Day.

Which actor, famous as the teenage truant Ferris Bueller, plays Colonel Robert Gould Shaw in Glory?

Matthew Broderick later learned on a television ancestry show that his own great-great-grandfather had fought as a Union soldier.

In Glory, where do Confederate soldiers bury Colonel Shaw after the failed assault on Fort Wagner?

A mass grave with his men was meant as an insult, but Shaw's father declared himself proud that his son lay among his soldiers.

In Glory, Private Trip is punished for desertion after leaving camp to look for which badly needed item?

Shoes were all Trip wanted, and the discovery sends a furious Shaw off to demand proper supplies for the whole regiment.

Glory opens with Captain Shaw wounded at which 1862 battle, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War?

Antietam is where the real Shaw fought with the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, months before the governor chose him to lead a new regiment.

What does Colonel Shaw do in Glory when his men refuse their unequal wages?

Colonel Shaw tears up his own pay stub in solidarity; the real regiment refused its reduced wages for about 18 months until Congress acted.

In Glory, which honor does Private Trip refuse from Shaw, then take up when Shaw falls at Fort Wagner?

Carrying the regimental flag means nothing to Trip at first, because he doubts the war will bring a better life for the enslaved.

Which abolitionist, played in Glory by Raymond St. Jacques, had two sons in the real 54th Massachusetts?

Frederick Douglass saw both sons sign on among the first recruits, and one of them, Lewis, rose to the regiment's highest enlisted rank.

Which film beat Glory at the box office on its wide-release weekend, then won that year's Best Picture?

Driving Miss Daisy also featured one of Glory's own stars, who earned a Best Actor nomination for it at the same ceremony.

The Shaw Memorial that inspired Glory's screenwriter stands at the edge of which historic city park?

Boston Common faces the bronze relief, which shows Shaw on horseback beside his marching men and took its sculptor fourteen years to finish.

Which actor plays John Rawlins, the older recruit who mentors the younger soldiers of the 54th in Glory?

Morgan Freeman later narrated a documentary about the real regiment and said Glory was one of his favorite films.

In Glory, John Rawlins is rewarded for guiding the younger men with promotion to which rank?

Sergeant major was as high as Rawlins could climb, because every commissioned officer in the 54th at the time was white.

Which actor plays Major Cabot Forbes in Glory, two years after starring as Westley in The Princess Bride?

Cary Elwes soon swung back to comedy, with Hot Shots! and the lead in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Which future Brooklyn Nine-Nine captain made his film debut in Glory as Thomas Searles?

Andre Braugher plays the bookish, educated friend of Shaw who becomes the very first man to sign up for the regiment.

Which Glory cast member plays Private Jupiter Sharts, one of the last survivors inside Fort Wagner?

Jihmi Kennedy plays the recruit, who ends the film facing a Confederate cannon beside Rawlins, Forbes and Thomas as the screen fades to black.

Which actor, later the warden in The Shawshank Redemption, plays General Harker in Glory?

Bob Gunton's general is far older than the real Charles Harker, who was still in his twenties in 1863 and never fought in that campaign.

The actor who plays Private Trip in Glory was then best known for which 1980s TV hospital drama?

St. Elsewhere cast him as Dr. Phillip Chandler from 1982 until 1988, the year before Glory reached cinemas.

In Glory, which officer does Colonel Shaw confront for holding back supplies meant for the 54th?

The quartermaster scene was invented for drama: the governor treated the real 54th as a pet project and saw that it lacked nothing.

In Glory, how does Colonel Shaw finally get the 54th out of manual labor and into combat?

Threatening to report profiteering by his superiors does the trick on screen; the real Shaw, tired of dock work, simply applied for action.

Why is the 54th the regiment that leads the charge on Fort Wagner in Glory?

Its commander volunteers it on screen; the real 54th had just gone two days without food when it took its place at the front.

Which Georgia town does Colonel Montgomery order the 54th to loot and burn in Glory?

Darien was undefended and of little strategic value, and the real Shaw complained over his superior's head about the burning.

Fort Wagner, the target of the final assault in Glory, guarded the approach to which Southern port city?

Charleston harbor is where the war's first shots were fired, at Fort Sumter, two years before the 54th made its charge.

In Glory, what is the only landward approach to Fort Wagner that the 54th must cross?

A narrow strip of beach ran between the Atlantic and an impassable swamp, funnelling attackers toward sand walls thirty feet high.

Glory's closing text says Fort Wagner never fell; what actually happened there in September 1863?

Confederates abandoned it after about sixty days of shelling, slipping away on the night of September 6 with a fresh Union assault looming.

Which punishment inflicted on Private Trip in Glory was in fact not permitted in the Union Army?

Whipping had been outlawed in the US Army since August 1861, so the flogging scene shows a punishment the real Shaw had no power to order.

Cabot Forbes is fictional; which real officer was Shaw's second-in-command and led the 54th after Fort Wagner?

Edward Hallowell, a Quaker, later had his men swear a carefully worded oath so that every one of them could collect equal back wages.

Which holiday appears in Glory, though the real 54th formed in February and fought Fort Wagner that July?

Christmas in the snow could never have happened: the regiment was recruited, trained, shipped south and bloodied within about five months.

Glory shows many soldiers of the 54th as former slaves; who actually filled most of the real regiment's ranks?

Free Black men from the North filled most of the ranks, joined by recruits from as far away as Canada and the West Indies.

Glory shows Shaw accepting command of the 54th at once; what did the real Shaw first do with the offer?

The real captain turned it down, reluctant to leave his own regiment and doubtful the new unit would reach the front, before changing his mind.

In Glory, how do the men of the 54th spend the night before their assault on Fort Wagner?

Holding a religious service, the soldiers give thanks and seek God's help; by morning the white troops who once scorned them are cheering.

Which co-creator of the TV drama thirtysomething directed Glory, years before The Last Samurai?

Edward Zwick said he was determined not to turn a Black story into one with a more commercially convenient white hero.

Which screenwriter of Glory, seen briefly on screen as a quarrelsome soldier, later wrote Tombstone?

Kevin Jarre, a Civil War buff since childhood, shut himself in a New York hotel room and wrote the script in a few weeks with no studio deal.

Which composer wrote Glory's choral score, years before his Oscar-winning music for Titanic?

James Horner worked out most of his themes at the piano, as the director had asked, and saved the brass for the battle scenes.

Which group of young singers, founded in a church in 1968, performs on the soundtrack of Glory?

Boys Choir of Harlem singers were also recorded for Malcolm X and several Spike Lee films before the group gave its last performance in 2007.

Which British cinematographer won his second Oscar for Glory, decades after his first for Sons and Lovers?

Freddie Francis spent nearly two decades between those wins directing horror films, among them The Evil of Frankenstein.

Glory's climactic assault on Fort Wagner was filmed on which part of the Georgia coast?

Jekyll Island still has a stretch of sand named after the film, reached by a long boardwalk that the producers built.

Glory's opening battle was shot with volunteer reenactors gathered at which famous Civil War battlefield?

Gettysburg hosted a major reenactment, and the crew filmed it to stand in for a different battle, fought the year before.

Which Civil War historian, soon famous from Ken Burns's PBS documentary, was Glory's technical adviser?

Shelby Foote saw himself mainly as a novelist, yet he is best known for a three-volume history of the war running to some 3,000 pages.

Which New York City Ballet co-founder wrote Lay This Laurel, a book behind Glory's screenplay?

Lincoln Kirstein had always wanted a film about the 54th, and it was he who first went looking for someone to write one.

Which Australian director was attached to Glory before leaving the project while it was stalled at Columbia?

Bruce Beresford left when a change of studio chiefs froze pre-production, and went on to direct that year's Best Picture winner.

Besides its acting and cinematography wins, Glory took its third Academy Award in which category?

Best Sound went to a four-man mixing team, while the film's other two nominations, for editing and art direction, came up short.

Glory's score was passed over by the Oscars but won which other award in 1991?

A Grammy for best instrumental composition written for film or television went to the score, which had already lost at the Golden Globes.

For its 2025 class, the Library of Congress chose Glory for preservation on which list of significant American films?

National Film Registry titles are chosen for being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, and Glory joined 36 years after its release.

Which Chicago critic gave Glory three and a half stars but asked why a white officer was its viewpoint?

Roger Ebert still called it a strong and valuable film, while wondering aloud why its top billing went to a white actor.

Which decoration did William Carney, a soldier of the real 54th, earn for saving the colors at Fort Wagner?

Medal of Honor recognition reached Carney only in 1900, yet his is the earliest action for which a Black American received it.

Which 1863 measure opened the Union Army to Black recruits and so made the 54th Massachusetts possible?

The Emancipation Proclamation said suitable men would be received into the armed forces, and within weeks the governor had approval to recruit.

Which university did Robert Gould Shaw, the colonel portrayed in Glory, leave without a degree?

Harvard still lists Shaw on the tablets of honor in its Memorial Transept, although he withdrew after three unhappy years.

The real 54th fought a rearguard action in 1864 at Olustee, the largest Civil War battle in which state?

Florida later lent that same battlefield to the makers of Glory, who used the park to stage the regiment's first skirmish.

Which sculptor made the bronze Shaw Memorial that inspired Glory, showing the colonel riding beside his men?

Augustus Saint-Gaudens kept reworking the relief even after its unveiling, and a later plaster version went to the National Gallery of Art.

In Glory, what does the Confederacy threaten to do to white officers captured leading Black soldiers?

The Confederacy vows to execute them along with any Black soldier taken in uniform, yet not one recruit accepts the discharge on offer.