Book Review

Like Men of War is an encyclopedic overview of the African American soldiers' combat experience in the Civil War. It focuses on the most significant battles of the 449 different engagements that black Union troops fought with Confederates, including the well-known ones at Port Hudson and Milliken's Bend, Louisiana, Battery Wagner, South Carolina, the Crater at Petersburg, Virginia, and Fort Pillow, Tennessee. It also describes virtually unknown engagements in Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas, and, more important, emphasizes the usually overlooked role that black troops played in some of the war's most famous battles in the East.

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Like Men of War offers abundant evidence that white Union soldiers experienced one war and African Americans quite another. Even specialists in the history of black Civil War military service cannot help but be astounded at the heroism and strength displayed by black troops. With slavery or venomous racial discrimination at home, indifference from his own political leadership in Washington, and arrogance and contempt from white commanders, a black soldier faced down an enemy that intended to enslave or execute him if captured. Emerging from Noah Andre Trudeau's stories is the clear fact that Confederates treated captured black soldiers murderously, the equal of anything found in the Balkans today. Despite all this, black troops performed with gallantry.

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