A. J. Cade is a retired United States Marine and executive council member with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He is a professional military historian who holds a doctorate in history from George Washington University.
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"By comparison to the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Infantry and the First South Carolina Regiment, the First Louisiana Native Guards have not attracted the level of scholarly attention they deserve. Until now. Based on an exceptional grounding in primary and secondary sources, Death or Victory makes for indispensable reading for historians and the general public alike. A superb, important book." - Douglas R. Egerton, Lincoln Prize-winning author of Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America "Finally! The comprehensive treatment the Louisiana Native Guards deserve. A. J. Cade's excellent narrative covers everything: how these Black heroes changed the national conversation about slavery and emancipation, protected Black women, liberated enslaved people, and were at the vanguard of Black troops in combat. With this book, Louisiana's Black commissioned officers and unique enlisted men are restored to the prominence they achieved during the Civil War." - Lorien Foote, author of The Gentlemen and the Roughs: Violence, Honor, and Manhood in the Union Army "A. J. Cade's Death or Victory, only the second book on the Louisiana Native Guards in over 150 years, fills a major gap in the historiography of the Civil War. Well-written and exhaustively researched, it revolutionizes our understanding of some of the most important Black troops in American history." - Keri Leigh Merritt, author of Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South "Taking a fresh look at an important topic, A. J. Cade provides the best study of the first important Black units raised to fight for freedom in the Civil War. Based on an array of primary sources and informed by a heightened awareness of the social, cultural, and martial aspects of this subject, Death or Victory gives us a gripping view of the 'life and times' of these regiments in the recesses of the Deep South and of their initiation by fire at Port Hudson. Cade's book is a rare mix of passion and scholarship." - Earl J. Hess, author of Civil War Cavalry: Waging Mounted Warfare in Nineteenth-Century America