Glory (1989 Film)
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50 free Glory (1989 Film) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Glory tells the story of the 54th Massachusetts, one of the first Black regiments to fight for the Union in the Civil War, and of the young white officer who led it. More than three decades on, it is still a film many history teachers reach for, and still one of the most admired war dramas of its era. This quiz covers the whole picture: the recruits and officers and the actors who played them, the key scenes from training camp to the final assault, the people behind the camera, the prizes the film collected, and the places where the screenplay departs from the historical record. It is written for film fans, Civil War buffs and classes that have just watched the movie. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will learn something even from the ones you get wrong.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor won his first Academy Award for playing the defiant Private Trip in Glory?
Denzel Washington
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.
Q 02Which actor, famous as the teenage truant Ferris Bueller, plays Colonel Robert Gould Shaw in Glory?
Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick later learned on a television ancestry show that his own great-great-grandfather had fought as a Union soldier.
Q 03In Glory, where do Confederate soldiers bury Colonel Shaw after the failed assault on Fort Wagner?
A mass grave with his men
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.
Q 04In Glory, Private Trip is punished for desertion after leaving camp to look for which badly needed item?
Shoes
Shoes were all Trip wanted, and the discovery sends a furious Shaw off to demand proper supplies for the whole regiment.
Q 05Glory opens with Captain Shaw wounded at which 1862 battle, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War?
Antietam
Antietam is where the real Shaw fought with the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, months before the governor chose him to lead a new regiment.
Q 06What does Colonel Shaw do in Glory when his men refuse their unequal wages?
Tears up his own pay stub
Colonel Shaw tears up his own pay stub in solidarity; the real regiment refused its reduced wages for about 18 months until Congress acted.
Q 07In Glory, which honor does Private Trip refuse from Shaw, then take up when Shaw falls at Fort Wagner?
Carrying the regimental flag
Carrying the regimental flag means nothing to Trip at first, because he doubts the war will bring a better life for the enslaved.
Q 08Which abolitionist, played in Glory by Raymond St. Jacques, had two sons in the real 54th Massachusetts?
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass saw both sons sign on among the first recruits, and one of them, Lewis, rose to the regiment's highest enlisted rank.
Q 09Which film beat Glory at the box office on its wide-release weekend, then won that year's Best Picture?
Driving Miss Daisy
Driving Miss Daisy also featured one of Glory's own stars, who earned a Best Actor nomination for it at the same ceremony.
Q 10The Shaw Memorial that inspired Glory's screenwriter stands at the edge of which historic city park?
Boston Common
Boston Common faces the bronze relief, which shows Shaw on horseback beside his marching men and took its sculptor fourteen years to finish.
Q 11Which actor plays John Rawlins, the older recruit who mentors the younger soldiers of the 54th in Glory?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman later narrated a documentary about the real regiment and said Glory was one of his favorite films.
Q 12In Glory, John Rawlins is rewarded for guiding the younger men with promotion to which rank?
Sergeant major
Sergeant major was as high as Rawlins could climb, because every commissioned officer in the 54th at the time was white.
Q 13Which actor plays Major Cabot Forbes in Glory, two years after starring as Westley in The Princess Bride?
Cary Elwes
Cary Elwes soon swung back to comedy, with Hot Shots! and the lead in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
Q 21Which Georgia town does Colonel Montgomery order the 54th to loot and burn in Glory?
Darien
Darien was undefended and of little strategic value, and the real Shaw complained over his superior's head about the burning.
Q 22Fort Wagner, the target of the final assault in Glory, guarded the approach to which Southern port city?
Charleston
Charleston harbor is where the war's first shots were fired, at Fort Sumter, two years before the 54th made its charge.
Q 23In Glory, what is the only landward approach to Fort Wagner that the 54th must cross?
A narrow strip of beach
A narrow strip of beach ran between the Atlantic and an impassable swamp, funnelling attackers toward sand walls thirty feet high.
Q 14Which future Brooklyn Nine-Nine captain made his film debut in Glory as Thomas Searles?
Andre Braugher
Andre Braugher plays the bookish, educated friend of Shaw who becomes the very first man to sign up for the regiment.
Q 15Which Glory cast member plays Private Jupiter Sharts, one of the last survivors inside Fort Wagner?
Jihmi Kennedy
Jihmi Kennedy plays the recruit, who ends the film facing a Confederate cannon beside Rawlins, Forbes and Thomas as the screen fades to black.
Q 16Which actor, later the warden in The Shawshank Redemption, plays General Harker in Glory?
Bob Gunton
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.
Q 17The actor who plays Private Trip in Glory was then best known for which 1980s TV hospital drama?
St. Elsewhere
St. Elsewhere cast him as Dr. Phillip Chandler from 1982 until 1988, the year before Glory reached cinemas.
Q 18In Glory, which officer does Colonel Shaw confront for holding back supplies meant for the 54th?
The quartermaster
The quartermaster scene was invented for drama: the governor treated the real 54th as a pet project and saw that it lacked nothing.
Q 19In Glory, how does Colonel Shaw finally get the 54th out of manual labor and into combat?
Threatening to report profiteering
Threatening to report profiteering by his superiors does the trick on screen; the real Shaw, tired of dock work, simply applied for action.
Q 20Why is the 54th the regiment that leads the charge on Fort Wagner in Glory?
Its commander volunteers it
Its commander volunteers it on screen; the real 54th had just gone two days without food when it took its place at the front.
Q 24Glory's closing text says Fort Wagner never fell; what actually happened there in September 1863?
Confederates abandoned it
Confederates abandoned it after about sixty days of shelling, slipping away on the night of September 6 with a fresh Union assault looming.
Q 25Which punishment inflicted on Private Trip in Glory was in fact not permitted in the Union Army?
Whipping
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.
Q 26Cabot Forbes is fictional; which real officer was Shaw's second-in-command and led the 54th after Fort Wagner?
Edward Hallowell
Edward Hallowell, a Quaker, later had his men swear a carefully worded oath so that every one of them could collect equal back wages.
Q 27Which holiday appears in Glory, though the real 54th formed in February and fought Fort Wagner that July?
Christmas
Christmas in the snow could never have happened: the regiment was recruited, trained, shipped south and bloodied within about five months.
Q 28Glory 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
Free Black men from the North filled most of the ranks, joined by recruits from as far away as Canada and the West Indies.
Q 29Glory shows Shaw accepting command of the 54th at once; what did the real Shaw first do with the offer?
Turned it down
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.
Q 30In Glory, how do the men of the 54th spend the night before their assault on Fort Wagner?
Holding a religious service
Holding a religious service, the soldiers give thanks and seek God's help; by morning the white troops who once scorned them are cheering.