Editing Emancipation Proclamation (section)

===Immediate impact===
[[File:SlaveChildrenUnknown.jpg|thumb|left|A photograph of two children who likely, were recently emancipated – circa 1870]]
[[File:Scene Along the Route.jpg|thumb|upright|"Scene Along the Route" from a ''[[The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philadelphia Inquirer]]'' correspondent (possibly [[U.H. Painter]]<ref>{{Cite news |date=1889-12-08 |title=Samuel Wilkeson Jr. |pages=1 |work=Buffalo Courier Express |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/buffalo-courier-express-samuel-wilkeson/127618446/ |access-date=2023-09-17}}</ref>) embedded with the [[Army of the Potomac]], ''The Indiana Progress'', June 1, 1864]]
On New Year's Eve in 1862, African Americans – enslaved and free – gathered across the United States to hold Watch Night ceremonies for "Freedom's Eve", looking toward the stroke of midnight and the promised fulfillment of the Proclamation.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-06-19 |title=The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth |url=https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-juneteenth |access-date=2022-06-13 |website=National Museum of African American History and Culture |language=en}}</ref>   It has been inaccurately claimed that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave;<ref>{{cite book|author=James M. Paradis|title=African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pd3HsBXCq94C&pg=PA90|year=2012|publisher=Scarecrow Press|page=90|isbn=9780810883369}}</ref> historian [[Lerone Bennett Jr.]] alleged that the proclamation was a hoax deliberately designed not to free any slaves.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Kenneth L. Deutsch|author2=Joseph Fornieri|title=Lincoln's American Dream: Clashing Political Perspectives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C-YAbM7YYCIC&pg=PT35|year=2005|publisher=Potomac Books|page=35|isbn=9781597973908}}</ref> However, as a result of the Proclamation, most slaves became free during the course of the war, beginning on the day it took effect; eyewitness accounts at places such as [[Hilton Head Island, South Carolina]],<ref>"News from South Carolina: Negro Jubilee at Hilton Head", ''New York Herald'', January 7, 1863, p. 5</ref> and [[Port Royal, South Carolina]]<ref name="New York Times January 9, 1863, p. 2"/> record celebrations on January 1 as thousands of blacks were informed of their new legal status of freedom. "Estimates of the number of slaves freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation are uncertain. One contemporary estimate put the 'contraband' population of Union-occupied North Carolina at 10,000, and the Sea Islands of South Carolina also had a substantial population. Those 20,000 slaves were freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation."<ref name=SIFBEP>Poulter, Keith, "Slaves Immediately Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation", ''North & South'', vol. 5, no. 1 (December 2001), p. 48.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=qUTrAwAAQBAJ&dq=Those+20,000+slaves+were+freed+immediately+by+the+Emancipation+Proclamation.&pg=PA109 Epps, Henry, ''A Concise Chronicle History of African-American People Experience in America'', SCL, 2012, p. 109]</ref> This Union-occupied zone where freedom began at once included parts of [[eastern North Carolina]], the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi Valley]], [[North Alabama|northern Alabama]], the [[Shenandoah Valley]] of Virginia, a large part of [[Arkansas]], and the [[Sea Islands]] of Georgia and South Carolina.<ref>Harris, "After the Emancipation Proclamation", p. 45</ref> Although some counties of Union-occupied Virginia were exempted from the Proclamation, the lower [[Shenandoah Valley]] and the area around [[Alexandria, Virginia|Alexandria]] were covered.<ref name=SIFBEP /> Emancipation was immediately enforced as Union soldiers advanced into the Confederacy. Slaves fled their masters and were often assisted by Union soldiers.<ref>{{cite book|author=Allen C. Guelzo|title=Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MOFHPTQYqzgC&pg=PT107|year=2006|publisher=Simon & Schuster|pages=107–8|isbn=9781416547952}}</ref>
On the other hand, [[Robert Gould Shaw]] wrote to his mother on September 25, 1862, "So the 'Proclamation of Emancipation' has come at last, or rather, its forerunner. I suppose you all are very much excited about it. For my part, I can't see what ''practical'' good it can do now. Wherever our army has been, there remain no slaves, and the Proclamation will not free them where we don't go." Ten days later, he wrote her again, "Don't imagine, from what I said in my last that I thought Mr. Lincoln's 'Emancipation Proclamation' not right ... but still, as a ''war-measure'', I don't see the immediate benefit of it, ... as the slaves are ''sure'' of being free at any rate, with or without an Emancipation Act."<ref>[[Gary W. Gallagher|Gallagher, Gary W.]], [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674066083&content=reviews ''The Union War''], Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2011, pp. 142-143.</ref>
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[[Booker T. Washington]], as a boy of 9 in Virginia, remembered the day in early 1865:<ref>{{cite book|author=Booker T. Washington|title=Up From Slavery: An Autobiography|url=https://archive.org/details/upfromslaveryan06washgoog|year=1907|publisher=Doubleday |pages=[https://archive.org/details/upfromslaveryan06washgoog/page/n55 19-21]}}</ref>
{{blockquote
|As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom.... [S]ome man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see.}}

[[File:A Visit from the Old Mistress.jpg|thumb|left|Winslow Homer 1876 – "A Visit from the Old Mistress" depicts a tense meeting between a group of newly freed slaves and their former slaveholder – [[Smithsonian Museum of American Art]]]]

Runaway slaves who had escaped to Union lines had previously been held by the Union Army as "contraband of war" under the [[Confiscation Acts]]. The [[Sea Islands]] off the coast of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] had been occupied by the Union Navy earlier in the war. The whites had fled to the mainland while the blacks stayed. An early program of [[Reconstruction Era of the United States|Reconstruction]] was set up for the former slaves, including schools and training. Naval officers read the proclamation and told them they were free.<ref name=Klingaman/>

Slaves had been part of the "engine of war" for the Confederacy. They produced and prepared food; sewed uniforms; repaired railways; worked on farms and in factories, shipping yards, and mines; built fortifications; and served as hospital workers and common laborers. News of the Proclamation spread rapidly by word of mouth, arousing hopes of freedom, creating general confusion, and encouraging thousands to escape to Union lines.<ref>{{cite book|last=Goodheart|first=Adam|title=1861: The Civil War Awakening|year=2011|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|location=New York}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2020}} George Washington Albright, a teenage slave in [[Mississippi]], recalled that like many of his fellow slaves, his father escaped to join Union forces. According to Albright, plantation owners tried to keep news of the Proclamation from slaves, but they learned of it through the grapevine. The young slave became a "runner" for an informal group they called the ''4Ls'' ("Lincoln's Legal Loyal League") bringing news of the proclamation to secret slave meetings at plantations throughout the region.<ref>Jenkins, Sally, and [[John Stauffer (professor)|Stauffer, John]]. ''The State of Jones''. New York: Anchor Books, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-7679-2946-2}}, p. 42.</ref>

Confederate general [[Robert E. Lee]] saw the Emancipation Proclamation as a way for the Union to increase the number of soldiers it could place on the field, making it imperative for the Confederacy to increase its own numbers. Writing on the matter after the sack of [[Fredericksburg, Virginia|Fredericksburg]], Lee wrote, "In view of the vast increase of the forces of the enemy, of the savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save the honor of our families from pollution [and] our social system from destruction, let every effort be made, every means be employed, to fill and maintain the ranks of our armies, until God in his mercy shall bless us with the establishment of our independence."<ref>[http://cwmemory.com/2011/11/18/robert-e-lee-on-robert-h-milroy-or-emancipation/ "Robert E. Lee on Robert H. Milroy or Emancipation," ''civil war memory: The Online Home of Kevin M. Levin'', November 18, 2011]</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Civil War: A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian|author=Shelby Foote|volume=2|year=1963|publisher=Random House}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2020}}

The Emancipation Proclamation marked a significant turning point in the war as it made the goal of the North not only preserving the Union, but also freeing the slaves.<ref>{{cite web |title=Emancipation Proclamation (1863) |url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/emancipation-proclamation |website=National Archives|access-date=13 February 2024|date=May 10, 2022}}</ref> The Proclamation also rallied support from abolitionists and Europeans, while encouraging enslaved individuals to escape to the North. This weakened the South's labor force while bolstering the North's ranks.<ref>{{cite web |title=Immediate Effects of the Emancipation Proclamation |url=https://www.portal.hsp.org/unit-plan-items/unit-plan-34 |website=Historical Society of Pennsylvania |access-date=13 February 2024}}</ref>