A couple of months ago, I watched the movie Glory, the 1989 film starring Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, which depicts the first major battle by black soldiers in the Union Army during the Civil War. It had such a powerful impact on me because I realized that there's so much

about this history that I just did not know, a history that most people do not know. And it's a

history that bleeds into almost every facet of politics and society today. I just had to know more.

So I hit up my good friend Eugene, who I know has a deep knowledge of this story. And I asked him for book recommendations,

and he suggested one by a historian named Noah Andre Trudeau. The book is titled, Like Men of War,

which is the most comprehensive history of black troops in the Civil War, pulling from letters,

newspaper articles, diaries, and much more. So I got the book, I couldn't put it down,

and I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since. And I figured if it had such a big impact on me,

it was something others would want to learn about, too, especially people who listen to Empire Files.

About 180,000 African Americans joined the Union Army between 1862 and 1865, made up of

free blacks from the north fighting alongside former slaves who escaped only to put on a uniform and go right

back to face their former masters in even combat. Some fought for retribution, some to rest

their families, all of them fought to liberate their people and end the vicious era of slavery.

But as you'll learn today, they are fighting for something even bigger than that monumental task.

We heard the proclamation master Hush it as he will

The bird he sing it to us hopping on the cotton hill

The possum of the gum tree he couldn't keep it still

As he went climbing on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah, glory hallelujah! Holy glory hallelujah as we go marching on.

We have done with ho and cotton.

We have done with ho and ho.

We are colored Yankee soldiers just as sure as you are home.

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