In Union County, New Jersey, many soldiers and sailors of African ancestry answered President Lincoln's call for troops during the Civil War and enlisted in regiments organized in Union County, the United States Colored Troops (USCT), out of-state-regiments and the United States Navy and Marine Corps. ¬They fought not only for country but also for their comrades in chains in the South and for the promise of equality that they had for so long been denied. ¬ rough their stories, never-before-seen photographs, documents and service records, local historian Ethel M. Washington tells a largely overlooked but riveting history of patriotic black servicemen in the North who defended the nation's ideals on the battle field even as they faced discrimination in the ranks and back home.