John David Smith is the Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has written or edited thirty-one books, including An Old Creed for the New South: Proslavery Ideology and Historiography, 1865-1918; Black Judas: William Hannibal Thomas and The American Negro; Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops; Soldiering for Freedom: How the Union Army Recruited, Trained, and Deployed the U.S. Colored Troops; and We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice: Black Voices from Reconstruction, 1865-1877.