Major cabot forbes 54th mass
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The bas-relief sculpture is 11' x 14' and its subject figures are nearly life size. (website includes audio & video resources).
“Shaw Memorial Photos,” CelebrateBoston .com.
“Black Soldiers Monument Returns to Boston Common After $3M Restoration,” NBCboston .com, March 3, 2021 (includes video on Camp Meigs historic site in town of Hyde Park, MA where 54th trained).
Also shown here, the black flag bearer at center with Colonel Shaw, was in the real battle, former slave William Harvey Carney, who belatedly in 1900, was the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor for his gallantry that day. This news is protested strongly by Trip, who instigates a resistance, tearing up his check, which in turn, moves Shaw to do the same, bonding men and officers together at that point, helping to form a cohesive unit.
Newly Added to Netflix, the Civil War Movie Reminds the Nation That Black Americans Fought for Their Own Emancipation,” SmithsonianMag.com, September 14, 2020. But that’s not the worst part. Click for copy.
Douglas A. Blackmon, “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II,” 2009, Anchor Books, 496 pp.
The soldiers endure a brutal training regimen, overseen by Sergeant Mulcahy (John Finn). In addition to the books, Shelby Foote, noted Civil War historian and star of the Ken Burns epic documentary on the war, was a key consultant to the film. In this case, it took four years for the film to get major studio financing.
As they go, they are cheered by white Yankee soldiers lining the path through the dunes, heading to their muster point. The Shaw Memorial still stands today.
All of this figured into Jarre’s becoming committed to writing a screenplay – which he would later say he did in four weeks after holding up in a New York City hotel.
Dismissed.
- Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Never, question my authority in front of others
- Major Forbes: Well I is sorry, mas'sa.
An after-battle, next-day scene then shows Confederate soldiers burying the Union dead in an open pit, as the camera shows a dead Colonel Shaw rolling into the pit with his men, and then Trip, rolling in next, landing on top of him.
Although their Ft. Wagner assault did not prevail (though the fort was later taken), word of the 54th Regiment’s heroics encouraged the battle deployment of other black regiments.
Geoffrey C. Ward, Ric Burns & Ken Burns, The Civil War: An Illustrated History (500+ photos), 1990, Knopf, 425 pp (companion volume to PBS TV series). For example, Shaw’s letters home received attention in the film, yet none of the black soldier’s characters or back-stories were similarly followed or developed.
In a forest, they shoot at the approaching Confederate soldiers, then engage in hand-to-hand combat using bayonets. Poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Robert Lowell praised the bravery of these soldiers, as did composer Charles Ives.
Still, most military leaders, north and south, did not believe blacks could be made into a reliable fighting force.
“The ocean and the marsh leave only a narrow strip of sand, a natural defile through which we can only send one regiment at a time. The fact that it’s also beautifully written and orchestrated and performed is just icing on the cake….”
Overall, Horner’s music in this film not only supports the unsung story of African American “glory” and heroism in the Civil War – but is also a stand-alone accomplishment, worthy of listening apart from the film, conveying its own emotive powers.