Juneteenth and the Facts

Juneteenth originally termed "Jubilee Day", is described as a holiday celebrated on the 19th June to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the US when Union General Gordon Granger arrived at Ashton Villa Galveston, Texas and issued General Order No.3. on June 19th 1865 more than a month after the formal end of the American Civil War. 

Because of the Order the holiday was first celebrated in Texas in 1865, on the aftermath of the Civil War. Slaves were declared free in General Order No. 3 under the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation, or Proclamation 95. 

In reality, freedom for those held in slavery did not come all at once upon the signing and publication of the Emancipation Proclamation. Regretfully it would take three more years until the Confederacy (The South) was defeated and those held in slavery in areas unoccupied by victorious Union forces could be freed. Because many parts of the Confederacy were undefeated in 1863, the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation was often delayed. 

Therefore three years after the original issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation when Union General Gordon Granger arrived at Ashton Villa Galveston, Texas,  after the formal end of the American Civil War he issued General Order No.3.

The following is the text of the official recorded version of the order:

Head Quarters District of Texas

Galveston Texas June 19th 1865.

General Orders No. 3.

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.

By order of Major General Granger

F.W. Emery

Major A.A. Genl.

To clarify, Proclamation 95 was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by the then United States President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, during the Civil War. 

The Proclamation read:

"That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."

Very few of those marking Juneteenth have acknowledged that the Emancipation was made plausible due to the sacrifice of MAINLY young "WHITE" Americans who fought to "preserve the Union"! 

On the left is an actual photo of citizens, soldiers and dignitaries with President Lincoln (indicated by the red arrow) during his famous speech delivered during the heighth of the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg

It is worth noting, in light of the divisions in America today, the words of President Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln described the US as a nation; "...conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," and described the Civil War-"as a test that would determine whether such a nation, the Union sundered by the secession crisis, could endure."

President Lincoln extolled the sacrifices of those who died at Gettysburg in defense of those principles, and exhorted his listeners to resolve:

"...that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Furthermore, to ensure the abolition of slavery in all of the U.S., it must be noted that Lincoln also insisted that Reconstruction plans for Southern states require abolition in new state laws (which occurred during the war in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana); 

Lincoln encouraged border states to adopt abolition (which occurred during the war in Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) and pushed for passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Congress passed the 13th Amendment by the necessary two-thirds vote on January 31, 1865, and it was ratified by the states on December 6, 1865. The amendment made chattel slavery and indentured servitude illegal