Two other books of interest on the black regiments are:
One Gallant Rush (author's name forgotten)
Army Life in a Black Regiment (TW Higginson, I think)
The former is the main source for "Glory", I believe. The latter is by
an officer of the 55th Mass., which was recruited at about the same
time as Shaw's 54th Mass. Also, I believe that a collection of Robert
Gould Shaw's letters has recently been published. They would be very
interesting reading in regard to the officer-enlisted man relationship.
Since I am not a professional historian, my comments on the movie might not
be what was asked for, but I thought it was outstanding. There were some
technical errors, but I still thought it was very good. The actor who played
Shaw was especially good, although a lot of critics didn't like him -- I
think they (the critics) didn't understand how young Shaw was.
One thing that was portrayed well in the movie was the tendency to use
the black troops initially as laborers instead of combat soldiers.
Jim Epperson
epperson@math.uah.edu