1863
Washington, DC, DC · On map
President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring that enslaved people in Confederate states 'henceforth shall be free.' This executive order shifted the Civil War's purpose to include the abolition of slavery and authorized the recruitment of Black soldiers into the Union Army. It did not immediately free all enslaved people but set the legal and moral framework for total emancipation.
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