History Film / Glory

* {{Dying Moment of Awesome}}: [[spoiler:Trip grabs the flag, despite having refused being the carrier earlier in the film. Even though he makes it only five feet or so, it's the most glorious five feet of his life.]]

* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: When they first meet the "Contraband" regiment, Thomas has trouble understanding their Southern dialect when they tell him he "march like the bukra (white) soldier" and "every day like kismis (Christmas)". Rawlins has to translate for him.

* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: When the men of the 54th are informed they will be paid less because they're a colored regiment, Trip is the first to refuse on principle and leads the others in tearing up their pay stubs. Eventually Shaw rips his own too in solidarity of their protest.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The film depicts the bulk of the 54th Regiment as being mostly comprised of runaway slaves, a number of whom were uneducated/illiterate. In reality, most of the Regiment's enlisted were actually educated/experienced freedmen like Thomas. The film also sets the raising and training of the unit in 1862, when it was actually in 1863.

** Likewise,after the 54th receives its first shipment of rifles in basic training, Private Jupiter Sharts shows off to the cheering admiration of his fellow soldiers. In response, Col. Shaw gives the private a stern wake-up call about how being a good squirrel hunter and being in combat are leagues apart--by making Sharts reload while he fires a revolver directly behind the man. Sharts panics almost instantly and can't reload. Fast forward to the Battle of James Island; Private Sharts is shown calmly but quickly reloading in an active combat zone while being charged down by a yelling Confederate soldier with a bayonet. He finishes reloading just in time to deliver a killshot at point-blank range.

* DrillSergeantNasty: Sergeant-Major Mulcahy. He's harsh on the soldiers not because he's a racist, but because he doesn't want them to die due to poor training[[note]]Being Irish, he's probably ''very'' familiar with racial discrimination in the 1860's.[[/note]]. Particularly, he outright ''apologizes'' to Thomas right after first beating him during bayonet drill training, making it clear he meant it as a demonstration of what he does wrong and why, rather than some form of bullying. His training eventually pays off when the 54th finally gets to see combat..

* ForegoneConclusion: Anyone who's read about the battle of Fort Wagner will know how it ended for the 54th Regiment.

-->'''Shaw''': That man is a ''civilian''.
-->'''Montgomery''': That man is a ''Secessionist''.

* LoopholeAbuse: While the Union mandated that only white commissioned officers would the 54th, they never said anything about ''non''commissioned officers. Thus, Shaw has Rawlins promoted to Sergeant Major in recognition of his leadership skills.

--> "What you lookin' at biscuit eater? Think you better than me? Think you my judge? You ain't nothin!" ''(laughs)''

-->'''Shaw''': How many of them are left? ''(camera pans and reveals that not a single soldier took the LastChanceToQuit.)''
-->'''Shaw''': (amazed) Glory Hallelujah...

* KillEmAll: Half the regiment dies or wounded/captured at the end. [[spoiler:Or, at least, everyone you cared about]]. This also counts as a ForegoneConclusion.

* ArmorPiercingSlap: Rawlins gives one to Trip before his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech.

* InsultBackfire: [[spoiler: Getting dumped in a mass grave with his black soldiers instead of a proper burial usually given to dead enemy officers]] was meant to disgrace Shaw. He probably wouldn't have had it any other way. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gould_Shaw His parents and wife felt it was no insult either.]]

* MassOhCrap: The soldiers of 54th are doing their very best to take over Fort Wagner despite heavy loses, ultimately rallying together for the final push inside of it. They face fierce resistance, but seem to be slowly winning more ground. They charge into another position, [[spoiler: only to run straight into few canons loaded with canister shot, already aimed in their direction. The Union soldiers have just enough time to realise how screwed they are, but not enough to do anything about it before the guns fire]]. Cut to next scene.

** [[DrillSergeantNasty Mulcahy]] may have insulted and treated the black recruits without mercy, but he is training them for the harsh battles ahead. Thus his insults are just your drill sergeant nastiness, rather than him meaning a single word of it.

** The ending text says Fort Wagner was "never taken". While it's true Fort Wagner was never taken by force, it was taken when the rebels abandoned the fort after a long siege.

* BittersweetEnding[=/=]DownerEnding: For the latter, the 54th loses the battle at the end with grievous losses, including [[TheHeroDies most of the]] [[AnyoneCanDie main characters]]. But in the former, their valor on that day would vindicate the worth of black soldiers with the Northern public and inspired the mass recruitment of thousands more, which helped make Union victory and the resulting destruction of slavery possible.

* WarIsHell: Played straight and subverted at the same time. While the film certainly doesn't sugarcoat the horrors of war, the title of the movie is not misplaced. The men of the 54th were eager to serve, and if they were not always victorious, they proved themselves true soldiers.

* IdiotBall: What makes the scene where Shaw has Trip whipped so hard to watch, besides the violence and sheer ValuesDissonance of it all, is the fact that it ''shouldn't have happened at all''. The entire sequence only happens because three of the film's characters make stupid decisions at the worst possible time. To elaborate: Trip is whipped because Shaw thinks he deserted his post, but as it turns out, Trip was only going to get shoes for the rest of the regiment (who desperately needed them) and had every intention of returning. However, this information is only brought to light once the punishment has already been carried out and it's not revealed beforehand due to 1) Shaw instantly believing the accusations against Trip without even a cursory investigation, 2) Trip making absolutely no effort to even explain or defend himself, and 3) Rawlins, who knew the truth about Trip ''the whole time'', only choosing to explain what really happened to Shaw '''after''' Trip has been whipped. A fine example of a tragic, gruesome situation that could have been avoided had even one of these characters made smarter and more timely moves.

* MistakenForRacist: Mulcahy, maybe. He definitely uses racist insults when harshly drilling the black soldiers and it's lampshaded at one point. Mulcahy's primary motivation nonetheless seems to be turning the men into soldiers tough enough to deal with horrific battles of the Civil War. He looks genuinely proud at the parade when he concludes their training. His racist remarks may just be an InUniverse example of FairForItsDay.

** The 54th fell under his command as part of his brigade later in the war.

* LoopholeAbuse: Colonel Shaw states that while blacks aren't allowed to be commissioned as officers, there's no rule stating they can't become NCO's, or Non-commissioned officers. They then promote John Rawlins to Sergeant-Major, the highest non-officer rank.