Pride. Honor. Glory. When most people think of war, these are what come to mind. Glory is unquestionably one of the things for which people fight. But glory has little to do with the harsh realities of war. Walt Whitman, the famed transcendentalist poet, understood the perils and horrors of war firsthand, as he was a male nurse who cared for wounded soldiers in Washington, D.C during the Civil War. This prompted him to suggest that “the real war will never go into the books.” It would seem that even an esteemed author of his caliber felt that war was impossible to capture honestly due to the textual mediums limitations as well as the unwillingness of writers and historians to properly document the plights of marginalized groups during the war. …show more content…
Thus, Whitman’s prediction that “the real war will never get into the books” is utterly refuted through Glory’s exploration of the troubles the all-black 54th Massachusetts regiment suffered during their unforgettable experiences from 1861-1863.
Although Whitman’s notion that the “real war” would never be published was largely true in his time, a significant part of his contention revolves around the limitations of the mediums available in his time; over a hundred years of technological advancement later, cinema has evolved as the perfect vehicle to accurately communicate the horrors of war. While Whitman was writing about his experience during the war, it would have been hard to imagine that visuals, like movies and shows we have today, would be able to perfectly capture the profound moments he describes in his poems. In Glory, some of the more remarkable scenes revolve around the adversity the 54th faced on and off the battlefield. In an article by James M. McPherson, he recalls that much of the white population in the north “hope they [black soldiers] will prove cowards and sneaks,” justifying how even Union soldiers wished to not interact with them. Although all of the African American volunteers felt proud to be in the Union