[watching Searles practice with his bayonet] Sgt. Mulcahy: Oh, what do we have here? Bonnie Prince Charley and his toy bayonet! You're not reading your books now. Stab me. Cpl. Thomas Searles: What? Sgt. Mulcahy: Stab-me. [Searles comes at him ginger...
[first lines] Title Card: Robert Gould Shaw, the son of wealthy Boston abolitionists, was 23 years old when he enlisted to fight in the War Between the States. He wrote home regularly, telling his parents of life in the gathering Army of the Potomac....
Major Forbes: [as Col. Shaw is writing, Maj. Forbes approaches him with a letter from President Lincoln] They've done it. Colonel Robert G. Shaw: [Shaw reads the letter] Assemble the men. [54th is in formation in the pouring rain in the Camp Readvill...
Trip: Let me tell you something, boy. You can march like the white man, you can talk like him. You can sing his songs, you can even wear his suits. But, you ain't NEVER gonna be nothing to him, than an ugly ass chimp... in a blue suit.
Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Glory hallelujah.
Rawlins: The town is clean sir. Ain't no rebs here, just some women. Col. Montgomery: You hear that! Let's clear er out! [His men begin looting the town] Colonel Robert G. Shaw: What are you doing? Col. Montgomery: Liberating this town in the name of...
Col. Montgomery: That wouldn't have been necessary if that sesesh woman hadn't started it. They never learn. You see sesesh has to be cleared away by the hand of God like the Jews of old. Now I will have to burn this town.
[Handing the journalist his letters home] Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Got some letters here, personal things. Also, if I should fall, remember what you see here.
Trip: Hey, yo, nigger, that's my spot, see. Cpl. Thomas Searles: If you don't mind, there's more sufficient reading light here. Trip: Oooh, I like it when niggers talk good as white folks! Cpl. Thomas Searles: I'd be happy to teach you. It would be m...
[Col. Shaw approaches Rawlins after having Trip horse-whipped for deserting] Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Mr. Rawlins... this morning, I... it would be a great help to me if I could talk to you from time to time about the men. That's all. [turns to leave]...
Trip: Nigger, is you an old man or is you an old woman? I forget.
John Rawlins: That's right, Hines. Ain't no dream. We runaway slaves but we come back fightin' men. Go tell your folks how kingdom come in the year of jubilee!
[Shaw enters the quartermaster's office while some of his soldiers guard the door] Kendric, quatermaster: Morning, Colonel. Change your mind about that bottle? Colonel Robert G. Shaw: I want 600 pairs of shoes and 1200 pairs of socks... and anything ...
Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Dear Mother, They learn, learn quickly, faster than white troops it seems to me. They are almost grave and sedate under instruction and they restrain themselves. But the moment they are dismissed from drill every tongue is rel...
Cpl. Thomas Searles: It's not true, is it? I mean about not being allowed to fight. The men are living for that day. I know I am.
Sharts: I wonder when they gonna give us the blue suits. Trip: [laughs] Where you from, boy? Sharts: South Carolina. Trip: South Carolina? Well, then you ought to know better than that, boy.
[the 54th has just been attached to Col. Montgomery's regiment in the hope of seeing combat. The troops are marching through the regiment's camp] Cpl. Thomas Searles: Who are these ragamuffins? John Rawlins: Contraband soldiers, straight from the fie...
Sgt. Mulcahy: You are ugly Mexican-African fuckin' whores!
