Title: Emancipation Proclamation: A Turning Point in the U.S. Civil War | The history writer blog
Headings: Emancipation Proclamation: A Turning Point in the U.S. Civil War
Emancipation Proclamation: A Turning Point in the U.S. Civil War
Tags
Post navigation
Cancel reply
Facebook: American American Colonies, Rebels and Redcoats
Categories
Archives
Goodreads
Image Gallery

Content: Emancipation Proclamation: A Turning Point in the U.S. Civil War | The history writer blog
Emancipation Proclamation: A Turning Point in the U.S. Civil War
12 Wednesday Nov 2014
Posted by Thehistorywriter in U.S. Civil War (1861-65), U.S. History
≈ Leave a comment
Tags
American Civil War, History
President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was an important turning point for the Union in winning the American Civil War (1861-65). Lincoln issued the Proclamation immediately following the battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), a tactically inconclusive but strategic “victory” for the Union army that pushed the Army of Northern Virginia back into Confederate territory, and effectively repelled General Robert E. Lee’s 1862 invasion of the North. After a full year of lost battles and failed campaigns, President Lincoln believed this victory gave him enough leverage to demand that the South lay down its arms and return to the Union before January 1, 1863 or else lose its slaves. Its practical effects on the ground were negligible however, since it only freed slaves in the states that were in rebellion and not in the neutral border states. Thus, the Emancipation Proclamation would only come into effect once the Union Army won the war. While it only affected a portion of both Union and Confederate soldiers (most of whom both cared little about slaves and slavery), it had an enormous impact on both nations. Most wars are won by the participant with morality on its side, and with a flimsy cause like fighting to preserve the Union, the war may have been lost; but by making it about the Union and the fight for abolition in the United States, Lincoln turned the war into a noble crusade on moral grounds.