![]() ![]() Shaw realizes that supplies are being denied to his soldiers because of their race. Rawlins shows Shaw how many of the men have horribly infected feet because of their rotting footwear. While talking to Rawlins, Shaw finds out that Trip had left merely to find suitable shoes to replace his own worn ones. The scars of his previous beatings as a slave are exposed, presenting a real dilemma for the abolitionist Shaw. When Trip goes AWOL and is caught, Shaw orders him flogged in front of the troops. But this causes some tension between him and Forbes, who is skeptical that the 54th will ever be given the opportunity to enter active combat. ![]() Knowing how badly his men want to fight, Shaw concedes Mulcahy's point. ![]() Shaw initially protests the treatment of his friend, but Mulcahy reminds him that this is the same training that all soldiers go through - and as a commander, Shaw has to treat all his men equally. Mulcahy comes down particularly hard on Thomas, who has had a relatively easier life than most of squad-mates and is consequently more out of shape. The black soldiers undergo a Draconian training regimen under the harsh supervision of Sgt. When the Confederacy issues an order that all black soldiers found in Union uniform will be summarily executed as will their white officers, the opportunity is given to all men in the 54th to take a honorable discharge, but none do. Trip instantly clashes with Thomas, and Rawlins must keep the peace. Other recruits soon follow, including Rawlins, timid freeman Jupiter Sharts ( Jihmi Kennedy), and Silas Trip ( Denzel Washington), an escaped slave who is mistrustful of Shaw. Their first volunteer soldier is another one of Shaw's friends, a bookish freeman named Thomas Searles ( Andre Braugher). He accepts the responsibility, and asks his childhood friend, Major Cabot Forbes ( Cary Elwes) to serve as his second-in-command. Shaw is offered a promotion to the rank of Colonel, and command of the first all-black regiment, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which will consist solely of black soldiers. While on medical leave in Boston, Shaw visits his family, and is introduced to former slave and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass ( Raymond St. Captain Robert Gould Shaw ( Matthew Broderick) is injured in the battle and assumed lost, but is found alive by a gravedigger named John Rawlins ( Morgan Freeman) and sent to a field hospital. During the American Civil War, the Massachusetts Infantry Regiment engages Confederate forces in the bloody Battle of Antietam. ![]()
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