The Civil War ended in April 1865 and two months later, on June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger of the Union Army issued General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, with Granger saying, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
THE SONG OF FREEDOM
Union general Gordon Granger read federal orders in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free.
This months after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
As the Galveston DAILY NEWS documented:
The Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two and a half years earlier, and the American Civil War had largely ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the last of the slave states, though the enforcement of the proclamation had been very slow and inconsistent.
Imagine.. so many did not know the order had been given.. so many did not know the President had been assassinated. And suddenly this Union general rolls into town and frees the last remaining slaves in captivity.. An emotionally moving American story.
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‘Juneteenth’ on the Texas State Library and Archives Commission documents Gordon Grander’s reading of the document:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
EMANCIPATION EXPERIMENTATION
Lonnie Bunch of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture was interviewed by NPR in 2013. The story focused on what President Lincoln’s proclamation did, and did not do. Namely FREE SLAVES in the Union territory.
He commented,
The Emancipation Proclamation is without a doubt the most misunderstood document in American history, that on the one hand the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery. Slavery was ended when the 13th Amendment was ratified. But what the Emancipation Proclamation does that’s so important is it begins a creeping process of emancipation where the federal government is now finally taking firm stands to say slavery is wrong and it must end.
But the proclamation had no force of law..
Bunch went on to to theorize on the the way Lincoln was strategizing during the war with the Proclamation:
Well, what’s clear is that Lincoln felt that if he could end the war and restore the Union without ending slavery, that would be OK with him, but by the time the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Lincoln realized that he had to do something bold, and part of the timing was that he had been working on this for the whole summer. But he realized that he didn’t have the sort of moral power to let this go until there was a Union victory, because after all what had happened was, if he had announced the Emancipation Proclamation and then there was a battle where the Union lost, it would seem like just words on a paper.
So what he did was he waited to release the emancipation till after they won the victory in Antietam in 1862. That then made it seem, in the minds of many, Europeans and non, that the Union was winning and it gave more power, more moral authority to the emancipation.
And more:
NPR: Are you saying that this was a step that he had always planned to take from the start of the war or was it something that – was he dragged to? Was he pushed? Did he jump?
BUNCH: It was an evolving thought. I would argue that the Emancipation Proclamation is not just about Lincoln, that in essence what happens is, is that as soon as the war breaks out, hundreds, then later thousands of African-Americans flee to the Union lines. They began to put pressure on the North to say, what are we going to do with these people? It led to a series of actions that culminates in the Emancipation Proclamation. So in some ways Lincoln thought about ending slavery as part of his evolving thinking, but part of that thinking was pushed by black people saying we’re free, now what else can we do?
As we can see… Civil War I was not as simply explained as modern history textbooks portray to students..
History is nuanced..
You can benefit greatly by reading the full interview here.. https://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168957092/what-the-emancipation-proclamation-didnt-do
THE FISHWRAPPERS
This is how the Galveston DAILY NEWS reported General Gordon Granger’s whereabouts two days prior to Juneteenth: He was leaving New Orleans to join his command in Galveston..He was expected to arrive ‘at any moment.’
On June 20, the Galveston DAILY NEWS said that up to 3,000 troops accompanied General Granger to the city. The paper reported that the city was “thronged” with Union troops, and that “so far as we have seen their conduct is orderly.” The paper reported that the city had ‘no occasion to regret their presence.’
MENTIONS OF JUNETEENTH IN HISTORY
More attention is being given to this important date every year. But it was not always as widely known.
There was this mention in 1877 from the Victoria ADVOCATE in Victoria Texas. A celebration was planned in the town for June 19, 1877 to celebrate General Granger’s order.
The Carlisle PA SENTINEL reported the term ‘Juneteenth’ term on June 26, 1926, with this dispatch reprinted from the Dallas NEWS in Texas:
Fast forward to the late 20th century:
Some more about Gordon Granger was found in a 1997 article about him in the Galveston DAILY NEWS..
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NUANCED TEENTH
Gordon Granger announced the freedom of slaves on June 19… but what else did he say?
It did not mean that slaves who were held in captivity suddenly had a normal life as a white man in the nation.
The Atchison Daily Champion from Kansas reported this on July 8, 1865:
He reported that slavery has ceased to exist in and it involves and “quality of personal rights and right of property between negroes and their former master.”
“At the same time he counsels the colored people to remain on the plantations and continue to work and warns them against idleness.”
While the orders did say that slaves could not work for ‘wages,’ it was clear that it was not a complete blanket freedom..
These old Civil War battles often still rage today. They were not just ‘gone with the wind’ in 1865..
OBITUARY MINUS JUNETEENTH
When Gordon Granger died in 1876, his obituary did not mention anything about the historic Texas moment.
It simply stated this in newspapers across America: He displayed bravery and was appointed colonel of the Second Michigan Calvary. He remained in service until the time of his death.
The New Orleans REPUBLICAN printed this ‘song for a soldier’ when Granger died in 1876:
PHD Nicki King writes this about the meaning of this day:
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when former slaves in Texas learned of the Emancipation Proclamation, meaning they were free. Please note the date: June 19, 1865, more than two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, six months after Congress passed the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and two months after Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
Juneteenth should be a day of reflection, not only in the African American community, but nationwide, of the lingering impact of trauma caused by slavery and continued institutional racism on the descendants of the enslaved.
THE REST IS HISTORY…
