Unlike the Union Army, the Union Navy had been accepting black soldiers since Colonial days, Valuska said. However, he said, they had been recruited by the Navy many years before the war started. Valuska pointed out that black men, like those of the 54th Massachusetts brigade depicted in the movie, were not allowed to enlist in the Union Army until the war broke out. Interest in Valuska’s findings has increased with the recent opening of the movie “Glory,” which deals with black soldiers in the Civil War. He has had access to two letters but is still trying to find journals or diaries that would give him a better picture of how the men lived. Valuska said he is sometimes discouraged because more personal information about the black sailors is hard to find. The reports are kept on file at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The documents, called “rendezvous reports,” contain sailors’ names, ranks, occupations, ages and places of origin at the time of enlistment.
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