Glory and Desertion: Black Civil War Soldiers’ Manly Care

Enslaved men volunteered to serve in the US Army during the Civil War because fighting presented them a chance to end slavery, earn citizenship, and reclaim manhood. Many believed at the time that violence in the name of freedom was a means of performing manhood. Such beliefs drove leaders like Frederick Douglass to declare at recruiting rallies -- “Men of Color, to Arms!” -- and many joined, hoping to assault Confederate strongholds. But not all Black men remained in the ranks. Approximately 12,000 decamped. Historians scarcely mention these Black deserters. However, the absence does not stem from mere oversight. Historians have presented rich accounts of the soldiers’ contributions to Union victory and the destruction of slavery. These histories inspired the tale of gallantry offered in the award-winning Glory (1989). So, with Union, freedom, and manhood at stake, the question is: why did formerly enslaved soldiers abandon the army? To understand these men, Jonathan Lande places the men’s flight in the context of slavery, race, and gender. He draws on scholars who have shown that many enslaved men valued familial duty in addition to or over violent resistance. Lande demonstrates that caregivers did not find military manhood entirely redeeming. Nor did they see desertion as cowardly. These husbands and fathers, sons and brothers framed flight as an expression of manliness and exercise in freedom, much as they had on plantations around the South before the war. Drawing on white officers’ letters and diaries, government reports, and courts-marital transcripts, Lande contends that such soldiers left to feed hungry wives and children, shelter parents, and nurse loved ones stricken with disease to enact their manhood.