Title: Slavery during the Civil War – Encyclopedia Virginia
Headings: Slavery during the Civil War
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Slavery during the Civil War
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Slaves’ Work and Daily Lives
Virginia’s Slaves Seize Their Freedom
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Content: Emancipation
Both Confiscation Acts treated runaway slaves as confiscated property rather than human beings. United States president Abraham Lincoln‘s September 1862 Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and his subsequent final Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863, followed suit. As long as slaves were confiscated property, freeing or even arming them did not pose too great a threat to the Northern social order. Yet, as many historians have noted, it was the actions of the slaves themselves—their very human desire for freedom—that pushed emancipation into a prominent position in the Union’s efforts to win the war. The U.S. Congress confirmed that prominence on January 31, 1865, by passing the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery throughout the United States. Historia