Monthly Archives: June 2012

One of the things any serious student of emancipation in the American Civil War comes to realize, sooner or later, was that freedom for the slaves in the Civil War was not a simple story. No one person, group, law, … Continue reading →

If Abraham Lincoln and his Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, had thought they had cowed Gen. David Hunter by countermanding his order of emancipation in Spring 1862 for the Department of the South, they were sorely mistaken. Even before … Continue reading →

Susan Schulten, of the University of Denver, has published an excellent piece in yesterday’s Disunion in the New York Times, which nicely compliments my Tuesday post on Congress ending slavery in the territories on June 19, 1862. Schulten, like myself, notes that this … Continue reading →

June 19 is not only Juneteenth, but it is also the anniversary of the date that Congress ended slavery in the western territories. On June 19, 1862, three years to the day before slaves in Texas realized they were free … Continue reading →

From Wikipedia: “Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States honoring African American heritage by commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865. Celebrated on June 19, the term is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth, and … Continue reading →

It was not just in Maryland that slaveholders, many of questionable loyalty, sought to enforce the fugitive slave law in Spring 1862. It also occurred in the Union enclave in North Carolina around New Bern, captured earlier in the year by … Continue reading →

In the last post, Civil War Emancipation dealt with resistance by Maryland slaveholders in Spring 1862 to the undermining of the peculiar institution in the state by the presence of Union troops and emancipation in the District of Columbia in April … Continue reading →

In late Spring 1862, if abolitionists believed that slaveholders in Union-controlled territory were willing passively to let slavery die, they were sorely mistaken. Civil War Emancipation has already dealt with Maryland slaveholders pursuing fleeing slaves into the District of Columbia after … Continue reading →