Movie review

BRUNSWICK — If there had been television in 1862, the Civil War would have ended after the Battle of Antietam. And there would have been no “Glory.”

The bloodiest day of the Civil War, which was etched into the Maryland countryside in September 1862, would have made grim viewing for the soldiers’ families had it been projected into this nation’s living rooms as Vietnam would be 100 years later. The politicians would have been forced to sue for peace in short order.

Antietam marks the beginning of “Glory,” one of the most remarkable and realistic Civil War movies ever made. Boston Brahmin Robert Gould Shaw, a Union officer, survives that battle and is given command of one of the first all-black regiments to volunteer and fight for the Union — the 54th Massachusetts.

The 54th’s moment of glory would occur nearly a year later, during a suicide assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina. That half of the regiment’s 600 men were killed on July 18, 1863, is a final reminder that there is no glory in combat but that glory can be achieved by soldiers.

The story is how a few hundred educated freedmen and illiterate runaway slaves are transformed into a disciplined and proud military unit that will not be satisfied until it has experienced the terrible toll of battle.

“Glory” is a war story about a great regiment, as “Patton” was a war story about a great general.

Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick, evolves from a naive young officer into a tough commander who maintains his sense of honor until the end. His coming of age coincides with the development of the 54th. The black soldiers and the white colonel mature together.

Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington star as black soldiers who acquire a dignity they had never dreamed possible as the regiment becomes a fighting unit.

“It ain’t much matter what happens tomorrow,” a former slave tells his comrades the night before they attack Fort Wagner. “We’re men, ain’t we? We’re men.”

It is not a movie for the faint of heart. The battle scenes are brutally realistic — especially since Civil War soldiers had none of the protective equipment available to the armies of this century.

Members of the audience have to steel themselves to sit there and take it, as if they are in the battles themselves.

But the realism of the battlefields, and of the field hospital that Shaw visits after Antietam, help the audience feel everything that the 54th Massachusetts Regiment experienced on the way to achieving its own “Glory.”