Emancipation Proclamation: Difference between revisions

[[File:Scene Along the Route.jpg|thumb|upright|"Scene Along the Route" from a ''[[The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philadelphia Inquirer]]'' correspondent (possibly [[U.H. Painter]]<ref>{{Cite news |date=1889-12-08 |title=Samuel Wilkeson Jr. |pages=1 |work=Buffalo Courier Express |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/buffalo-courier-express-samuel-wilkeson/127618446/ |access-date=2023-09-17}}</ref>) embedded with the [[Army of the Potomac]], ''The Indiana Progress'', June 1, 1864]]

On New Year's Eve in 1862, African Americans – enslaved and free – gathered across the United States to hold Watch Night ceremonies for "Freedom's Eve", looking toward the stroke of midnight and the promised fulfillment of the Proclamation.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-06-19 |title=The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth |url=https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-juneteenth |access-date=2022-06-13 |website=National Museum of African American History and Culture |language=en}}</ref> It has been inaccurately claimed that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave;<ref>{{cite book|author=James M. Paradis|title=African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pd3HsBXCq94C&pg=PA90|year=2012|publisher=Scarecrow Press|page=90|isbn=9780810883369}}</ref> historian [[Lerone Bennett Jr.]] alleged that the proclamation was a hoax deliberately designed not to free any slaves.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Kenneth L. Deutsch|author2=Joseph Fornieri|title=Lincoln's American Dream: Clashing Political Perspectives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C-YAbM7YYCIC&pg=PT35|year=2005|publisher=Potomac Books|page=35|isbn=9781597973908}}</ref> However, as a result of the Proclamation, most slaves became free during the course of the war, beginning on the day it took effect; eyewitness accounts at places such as [[Hilton Head Island, South Carolina]],<ref>"News from South Carolina: Negro Jubilee at Hilton Head", ''New York Herald'', January 7, 1863, p. 5</ref> and [[Port Royal, South Carolina]]<ref name="New York Times January 9, 1863, p. 2"/> record celebrations on January 1 as thousands of blacks were informed of their new legal status of freedom. "Estimates of the number of slaves freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation are uncertain. One contemporary estimate put the 'contraband' population of Union-occupied North Carolina at 10,000, and the Sea Islands of South Carolina also had a substantial population. Those 20,000 slaves were freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation."<ref name=SIFBEP>Poulter, Keith, "Slaves Immediately Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation", ''North & South'', vol. 5, no. 1 (December 2001), p. 48.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=qUTrAwAAQBAJ&dq=Those+20,000+slaves+were+freed+immediately+by+the+Emancipation+Proclamation.&pg=PA109 Epps, Henry, ''A Concise Chronicle History of African-American People Experience in America'', SCL, 2012, p. 109]</ref> This Union-occupied zone where freedom began at once included parts of [[eastern North Carolina]], the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi Valley]], [[North Alabama|northern Alabama]], the [[Shenandoah Valley]] of Virginia, a large part of [[Arkansas]], and the [[Sea Islands]] of Georgia and South Carolina.<ref>Harris, "After the Emancipation Proclamation", p. 45</ref> Although some counties of Union-occupied Virginia were exempted from the Proclamation, the lower [[Shenandoah Valley]] and the area around [[Alexandria, Virginia|Alexandria]] were covered.<ref name=SIFBEP /> Emancipation was immediately enforced as Union soldiers advanced into the Confederacy. Slaves fled their masters and were often assisted by Union soldiers.<ref>{{cite book|author=Allen C. Guelzo|title=Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MOFHPTQYqzgC&pg=PT107|year=2006|publisher=Simon & Schuster|pages=107–8|isbn=9781416547952}}</ref>

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[[Booker T. Washington]], as a boy of 9 in Virginia, remembered the day in early 1865:<ref>{{cite book|author=Booker T. Washington|title=Up From Slavery: An Autobiography|url=https://archive.org/details/upfromslaveryan06washgoog|year=1907|publisher=Doubleday |pages=[https://archive.org/details/upfromslaveryan06washgoog/page/n55 19-21]}}</ref>