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In addition to writing Soldiering for Freedom, Luke also wrote The Baltimore Elite Giants: Sport and Society in the Age of Negro League Baseball. His co-author Smith is the Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History at University of North Carolina and the author of Black Judas: William Hannibal Thomas and"The American Negro."

Here is our interview with Bob Luke.

Glory deserved, in my opinion, its critical acclaim as a movie. It graphically portrayed African Americans’ sacrifice, suffering, bravery, achievements, and white officer on black recruit cruelty. In so doing it presented not only a compelling story but brought attention to the then lesser known role of African American Union soldiers. The movie did, however, take many liberties with the regiment’s history, and by extension, with the history of the U.S. Colored Troops. To have discussed the accurate points and tried to correct the liberties would have unnecessarily focused too much attention on one regiment and distracted the readers, many of whom are college students who may not be familiar with the movie, from the book’s main theme - the various ways in which African American soldiers were recruited, trained, and deployed. I mentioned the movie only in passing. As a general rule, I don’t look for history at the movie theater.

Once the Proclamation was issued, the Union began recruiting black troops. Did blacks begin volunteering to serve in the military before recruiting centers were even established? How were free blacks and former slaves recruited into army units?

The recruitment of African American soldiers was at differing times and places legal, illegal, haphazard, voluntary, systematic, and coercive. Prior to Lincoln’s Final Emancipation of January 1, 1863, slaves by the thousands, individually as well as families, fled farms and plantations to join the army and win freedom for themselves. Males worked as laborers while the women cooked and laundered. In another pre-Proclamation effort, generals and politicians, notably in the Carolinas and Kansas, unbeknownst to Lincoln, promised slaves their freedom if they would enlist. Lincoln promptly voided the promises. Immediately following the Proclamation, which gave the army authority to arm African Americans, a group of prominent abolitionists led by industrialist George Stearns and including William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Philips, and Julia Ward Howe raised funds to support a network of more than 100 black recruiters. They worked the Mississippi Valley, the northern states, Canada, and the mid-west as far as St. Louis. The recruiters, who received two dollars for every able-bodied man they delivered, made all manner of promises, most of which were never kept. Many of these recruits formed the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantries.

I could see the book in a class on African American history or the Civil War. It’s a historical hors d’oeuvre, 107 pages excluding footnotes and bibliography. Students would gain an overview of race relations in mid-nineteenth century in general and during the Civil War in particular. The bibliography provides many avenues for more in-depth reading.