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 in the Civil War; and We Ask Only for Even-Handed Justice:  Black Voices from Reconstruction.