Jonathan Lande

Ph.D., History, Brown University, May 2018

BIO

Dr. Lande is the author of Freedom Soldiers and Valiant Men of War, histories examining the military experiences of Black soldiers and their families during the US Civil War.

He earned his PhD at Brown University. Before joining Purdue, he was the Brown University-Tougaloo College Exchange Faculty Fellow and the Schwartz Postdoctoral Fellow at New-York Historical Society and the New School.

He is the recipient of awards including the Allan Nevins Dissertation Prize (Society of American Historians), the Cromwell Dissertation Prize (American Society for Legal History), the Du Bois-Wells Paper Prize (African American Intellectual History Society), and the William F. Holmes Paper Prize (Southern Historical Association). He also received Brown University’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching (2018), an award he was nominated for by students from Brown and Tougaloo.

He has published peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of American History, Journal of Southern History, Journal of Social History, Journal of African American History, Journal of American Ethnic History, and Civil War History. His work has also been published by the Washington Post and Time Magazine. He has been a research fellow at, among other institutions, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Houghton Library of Harvard University, and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition of Yale University.

He has delivered papers on his research at meetings of organizations including the American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, and the Southern Historical Association. C-SPAN aired his talk on formerly enslaved men who deserted the US Army. It can be viewed here.

He is accepting graduate students interested in delving into the Civil War era and African American history throughout the nineteenth century

List of Publications

Valiant Men of War: Black Soldiers’ Fight for Family, Honor, and Nation in the Civil War South (New Haven: Yale University Press, forthcoming: November 2026)

 “Manly Occupation: Black Civil War Soldiers’ Battles Over Racism and Manhood Across the Occupied South.” Journal of Southern History 92, no. 1 (February 2026): 73-110.

 Roundtable on Robin Bernstein’s Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder that Shook America’s First Prison for Profit, with Evan Kutzler, Jen Manion, Koritha Mitchell, Heather Thompson, Crystal Webster, and Jonathan Wells, Civil War History 71, no.2 (March 2025).

 “‘Prompted by the Strongest Motive’: Enslaved Americans’ Role in Abraham Lincoln’s Decision to Arm Black Men.” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 46, no. 1 (Spring 2025): 52-86.

Freedom Soldiers: The Emancipation of Black Soldiers in Civil War Camps, Courts, and Prisons (Oxford University Press, 2024)

“Emancipating Masculinity: Black Union Deserters and Their Families in the Civil War South,” Journal of American History 109, no. 3 (December 2022): 548-570.

“‘Prisoners with Undaunted Patriotism’: Incarcerated Black Soldiers and Battles of Citizenship in Military Prisons during the Civil War,” Civil War History 68, no. 3 (September 2022): 229-267.

“The Black Badge of Courage: The Politics of Recording Black Union Army Service and the Militarization of Black History in the Civil War’s Aftermath,” Journal of American Ethnic History 42, no. 1 (Fall 2022): 5-42.

 “‘Lighting Up the Path of Liberty and Justice’: Black Abolitionist Fourth of July Celebrations and the Promise of America from the Fugitive Slave Act to the Civil War,” Journal of African American History 105, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 364-95. 

 “Trials of Freedom: African American Deserters during the U.S. Civil War,” Journal of Social History 43, no. 3 (Spring 2016): 693-709.