Vitals

Matthew Broderick as Col. Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army officer

Civil War-era America, Fall 1862 through Summer 1863

Film: Glory
Release Date: December 15, 1989
Director: Edward Zwick
Costume Designer: Francine Jamison-Tanchuck

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Memorial Day honors military personnel of the United States Armed Forces who died during their service. The Department of Veterans Affairs credits the holiday’s origins with Mary Ann Williams, who was widowed during the American Civil War, and the resulting holiday was known as “Decoration Day” when it was first proclaimed by Major General John A. Logan on May 30, 1868. Logan originally intended the holiday to honor Union soldiers and officers who had died during the Civil War, but the scope expanded to recognize all members of the U.S. military who had fought and died in service. On the 100th year of the observance in 1968, Congress standardized the timing to align with the last Monday in May.

Last spring, my wife and I traveled the nearly 200 miles east to Gettysburg—my first time visiting the historic city and battlefield since I was a child—which reinvigorated my interest in this destructive period in history. Combined with the origins of Memorial Day following the devastation of the Civil War, it feels appropriate to honor the true story at the heart of Glory, Edward Zwick’s Oscar-winning drama about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment—one of the first Black regiments organized by the Union Army.

Glory follows the regiment’s real-life commanding officer, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick), from his service during the bloody Battle of Antietam in September 1862 through his assignment to lead the 54th and leading the regiment into battle against the considerable Confederate defenses of Charleston Harbor, culminating with the 54th’s heavy losses during the culminating Second Battle of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. Born to an abolitionist Bostonian family, the 26-year-old Shaw increasingly supports equal treatment and pay for the troops under his command.

They have risked their lives to be here, they have given up their freedom. I owe them as much as they have given, I owe them my freedom. My life, if necessary.

— Col. Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) in Glory

In addition to Broderick’s leading role as Colonel Shaw, the cast includes Andre Braugher, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman, and Denzel Washington, who received his first Academy Award for his performance. Nominated for a total of five Oscars, Glory was also awarded Best Cinematography and Best Sound. Kevin Jarre sourced his screenplay from several books about the 54th and Colonel Shaw’s own letters, with the title Glory derived from the Bermudian soldier 1SG Robert John Simmons, who wrote after the Battle of Grimball’s Landing that “God has protected me through this, my first fiery, leaden trial, and I do give Him the glory.” Shortly after writing this letter to his wife, Simmons would be mortally wounded during the second assault on Fort Wagner and died weeks later at age 26.

(While Glory‘s early scene depicting the Battle of Antietam was filmed with re-enactors at Gettysburg National Military Park, the sequences set around Grimball’s Landing were filmed at Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park. This locale has a connection with my family’s history as my wife’s paternal third-great-grandfather, George Hoyt of the “Iron Hearted” 115th New York Infantry Regiment, was badly wounded during the Battle of Olustee in February 1864. Family lore explains that, undeterred by his C.O. reportedly leaving him for dead, Private Hoyt spent an entire day walking to a hospital and eventually married the Irish-born nurse who helped save his life, establishing the family that my wife would eventually be born into.)

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What’d He Wear?

As the official continuation of the well-established U.S. Army, the Union Army was more prepared with uniforms and equipment at the outset of the Civil War, while the Confederacy had more limited stocks of its issued gray gear and often had to make do with a scrappier mix of what could be scrounged or stolen. The Union Army thus maintained the campaign, fatigue, and parade uniforms that evolved through the 1850s—often influenced by European gear, particularly French uniforms.

Headgear

Colonel Shaw occasionally wears the black wool felt Model 1858 “Hardee” dress hat, named for Army officer William J. Hardee, who resigned his commission to join the CSA at the start of the Civil War. Inspired by Danish military headgear, this dress hat has a tall, round crown and a curved brim, with the right side secured against the crown with a gold embroidered eagle—as opposed to the metallic eagle on enlisted personnel’s hats.

Following 1861 Army regulations, the front of Shaw’s hat features an ovular black velvet patch with the gold embroidered bugle reserved for infantry officers. The gold acorn-ended cord around the base of the crown is gold and black silk, detailed with a trio of black ostrich features pluming from the left side.

More frequently, Shaw wears the recognizable Model 1858 forage cap, based on the French kepi and reserved for campaign and fatigue detail. Constructed with a soft navy wool cover, these flat-crowned caps have black patent leather brims and matching black leather chinstraps—secured with brass crest buttons on each side and matching center buckle.

Like his Hardee dress hat, Shaw’s kepi boasts the gold-embroidered infantry bugle M1851 insignia on the front of the crown, adopted from March 1863 onward. The badge is eventually also adorned with the regimental number inside the infantry horn, specifically the silver-wire “54” to denote Shaw’s leadership of the 54th.

Union Army Uniform Jackets

Shaw most frequently wears his dark-navy wool thigh-length frock jacket, styled with a double-layered standing collar and the full complement of 14 eagle-crested gilt buttons which he wears both fully fastened to the neck or with the top two rows undone and buttoned back to the chest like revers. The shoulders are detailed with insignia boards indicating his rank of Colonel with a silver-embroidered eagle spread against a blue ground, with the yellow-braided border coordinating with his infantry regiment. The sleeves are finished with three functional buttons, and the back is decorated with two gilt buttons along the waist-line.

The button arrangement follows the same rules as the shell jackets, with single-breasted frock coats for junior officers and double-breasted frock coats for senior field officers like the newly promoted Colonel Shaw.

Shaw briefly pulls on a dark-navy heavy wool sack coat, buttoning only the top of its four eagle-crested gilt ¾” buttons. Like a hip-length version of the shell jacket, this fully lined, loose-fitting coat has a standing roll collar and rank insignia fastened to the shoulders. Based on civilian work jackets and contemporary Prussian Army fatigues, this loose-fitting style was adopted later in the war and remained in service through most of the subsequent Indian Wars.

Union Army officers often wore waist-length shell jackets of dark Prussian blue broadcloth wool. As observed when Shaw is promoted several ranks from Captain to full Colonel, junior officers (ranked Captain and below) were issued nine-button single-breasted shell jackets while senior field officers like Colonel Shaw wore double-breasted shell jackets with 14 buttons arranged in two neat columns of seven gilt eagle-crested buttons each.

Shaw wears this shell tunic in various manners, typically fully buttoned back against itself on each side. Like the frock coat, his shell jacket features Colonel rank insignia boards facing out from each shoulder and functioning three-button cuffs.

The blue wool waistcoat (vest) issued by the Union Army was similar across officers and enlisted men, typically configured with nine gilt buttons from the straight-cut bottom up to the standing collar. Layered under his frock coat during the pay protest and his shell jacket for the final battle, Shaw’s waistcoat features four welted pockets, with the higher row of two pockets aligned with the fourth buttonhole where he also wears his gold watch-chain “single Albert”-style, keeping the watch itself in his lower right waistcoat pocket.

Shaw follows the tradition of most staff officers with the crimson-red silk sash wrapped around his waist. These 5″-wide tubular sashes were around nine feet long, enough to be wrapped around the wearer’s waist at least twice, with pendant tassels hanging from each end.

In addition to the sash, Shaw wears a black leather belt over his uniform, buckled through a cast brass two-piece plate with a motif associated with Massachusetts troops. Going into battle, he loops on a matching black leather holster with a large flap that closes through a brass peg, securing his butt-forward .36-caliber Colt Model 1851 Navy revolver against his hip.

Additional Uniform Gear

Shirts were among the more varied pieces worn by Civil War troops, especially later in the war and among enlisted ranks who were not as prioritized by supply chains or bound to parade duties. As a full colonel, Shaw maintains decorum in his clean white shirts with their turndown spread collars, pleated fronts, and voluminous sleeves finished with a single button on each cuff. Popover shirts were more common during the 1860s, though Shaw’s shirts typically have long plackets of at least five buttons that may extend all the way to the hem. He always wears the black silk cravat, shaped like a straight-ended bow tie and often fastened with a silver-toned double-prong rear buckle.

Only seen when stripped down to his shirt-sleeves or even his off-white cotton long-sleeve henley-style undershirt, Shaw wears beige cotton canvas suspenders (braces) that have gold-finished adjusters and dark-brown leather hooks to connect along the inside of his trouser waistband.

Contrasting against the navy-blue jackets issued by the Union Army, all enlisted men and most regimental officers wore sky-blue wool trousers as standardized from the end of December 1861 onward, aside from generals, Ordnance Department officers, and staff officers who retained the darker blue trousers.

All ranks from NCOs up had trousers typically detailed with side piping denoting their respective branch of service, such as dark-blue for infantry, red for artillery, crimson for ordnance and medical, and yellow for cavalry and engineers. Corporals wore half-inch stripes, while sergeants and up wore 1½”-wide stripes, only reduced in size once issued to regimental officers. As a regimental infantry officer, Colonel Shaw’s sky-blue trousers are detailed with ⅛” dark-blue welted stripes along the outer seams. The rear hem is split with a fish-tail “V” to better accommodate the suspenders fastened to tin buttons along the inside of the waistband.

Shaw often wears the cavalry’s black leather calf-high riding boots, though he reinforces for battle by pulling on the taller black leather boots with arced knee-flap extensions.

Shaw wears cream-colored kidskin leather gloves, with a three-point construction over the back of the hands and ornamental gauntlets covering the wrists and the cuffs of his sleeves.

Against colder weather, Shaw wears a variation of the M1851 greatcoat issued to the Army’s mounted services, with a heavy navy-blue wool double-breasted body covered by a single-breasted cape. This waist-length cape has seven rounded gilt buttons that Shaw wears fully undone. He often accompanies the greatcoat with a dark navy woolen scarf.

For extreme weather, black rubberized ponchos were available for cavalry and artillery units, though they could also be appropriated by mounted infantry like Colonel Shaw. Designed to double as a groundsheet, these ponchos varied in their construction, with the style worn by Shaw in Glory appearing as simple as a vast cape with a black-buttoned front.

On the rare situation in Glory that calls for Colonel Shaw’s full dress uniform, he dons the black “Hardee” hat (with his regimental number within the infantry bugle badge), a white pleated shirt with standing collar, black bow-tied cravat, crimson waist sash, and dark-navy double-breasted frock coat with the large fringed gold shoulder epaulets boasting his silver colonel rank insignia.

To read more about how Union Army officers and personnel were dressed during the Civil War, I recommend perusing C&C Sutlery, a reenactment supplier which was a very valuable resource (in addition to Wikipedia, of course) when researching and writing this post, as well as the 1861 Army uniform regulations.

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The Gun

Glory follows the historical record of many troops on both sides of the Civil War carrying the Colt Model 1851 Navy revolver into combat, including both Colonel Shaw and his second-in-command Cabot Forbes (Cary Elwes). “Major Forbes, give me your Colt’s revolver,” Shaw asks of the latter during a shooting lesson to their recruits, using Forbes’ Navy revolver to demonstrate his point. Shaw later fires a shot from his own Colt ’51 Navy into the air to quell the protest when the regiment’s pay is lowered from $13 to $10 per month, tearing up his own check (“If you men will take no pay, then none of us will!”), and during the 54th’s combat engagements at James Island and Fort Wagner.

Designed by Samuel Colt in 1850, the .36-caliber “Colt Revolving Belt Pistol” was designed as a lighter and more portable alternative to the heavy .44-caliber Walker and Dragoon Colt revolvers, which were often carried in saddle holsters. The colloquial “Navy” moniker is something of a misnomer, likely referring to the barrel depicting the Second Texas Navy’s 1843 victory during the Battle of Campeche, engraved by Waterman Ormsby. Indeed, most of the approximately 272,000 Model 1851 Navy revolvers produced by Colt until 1873 were wielded by civilians and land forces like both the Union and Confederate Armies.

Following the contemporary technology of the 1850s and ’60s, the Colt Model 1851 Navy was a single-action percussion revolver—loaded with a .36-caliber round lead ball and either loose powder or Civil War-era combustible paper cartridges, then ignited by a fulminate percussion cap. As metallic cartridges became more prevalent after the Civil War, some users converted their cap-and-ball revolvers like the Model 1848 Army Dragoon and Model 1851 Navy to fire metallic rounds, but these older handguns were mostly eclipsed by weapons like Colt’s revolutionary new Single Action Army that was soon immortalized as the “Peacemaker”.

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Colonel Shaw’s Uniform

Though Colonel Shaw frequently incorporates other elements authorized for Union Army wear—such as the single-breasted sack coat, cape-adorned greatcoat, and dramatic Hardee hat—he typically maintains a straightforward and smart campaign uniform with his frock coat, kepi, sash, and cravat.

• Navy-blue wool frock coat with gilt eagle-crested 14×7-button double-breasted front, 3-button cuffs, decorative 2-button back, and Colonel shoulder insignia
• Navy-blue wool waistcoat with standing collar, gilt eagle-crested 9-button single-breasted front, four welted pockets, and straight-cut bottom
• White shirt with turndown spread collar, pleated front with button-up placket, and 1-button cuffs
• Black silk bow-tie
• Crimson-red silk waist sash
• Black leather belt with cast brass two-piece buckle and flapped black leather revolver holster
• Sky-blue wool flat-front trousers with internal suspender buttons, fish-tail back, and dark-blue welted side seams
• Black leather riding boots with extended knee flaps
• Navy-blue wool kepi-style forage cap with gold-embroidered infantry bugle, black leather chinstrap with brass side buttons and center buckle, and black patent leather brim

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

It is my hope that the same courage, spirit, and honor which has brought us together will one day restore this union.