- The emancipation policy brought the slavery issue back to the center of the Civil War. While its intended purpose is often mischaracterized today, it greatly altered the war and possibility for the future.
- Further effects depended on the militarily outcome. This turned in the Union’s favor suddenly in July 1863, with the Battle of Gettysburg.
- Still, it remained ti be seen whether the war and emancipation would survive the divides in Northern politics
First emancipation proclamation: If confederates don’t rejoin the union, they’ll free slaves
Second follows through, freeing them.
His role as president is to end the war
Part I - The Emancipation Turning Point
A. Limits and New Possibilities
The “Did-Nots” of Emancipation
- Ending slavery?
- Freeing Slaves?
- Changing Northern Opinion?
Impact of the Proclaimation
- Economic and psychological blow to the south
- Transfer of labor to the Union
- End threat of European intervention
- Aligns the Union with Immediatism
B. Lincoln’s Emancipation Address
Part II - The Military Turn
A.
Union successful in west, confederacy successful in the east
Gettysburg
- Larges battle ever fought in NA
- Begins as a small skirmish over shoes
- Fishhook technique forced confederate army to spread out (smaller army)
- James Longstreet took advantage of a vulnerability of Sickles line. (Too far ahead of fishhook)
- Sickles lost his leg, which is now preserved in history
- Joshua L. Chamberlain: “The Fighting Professor” (20th Maine)
- The hero of little round top
- Union has supply lines, Confederacy doesn’t
- Pickets charge (confederate charge) fails, causing the first Union victory in the East.
- 50,000+ causalities, relatively, one third of the confederate army was casualties.
Vicksburg
- Union gains full control of the Mississippi River