A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition]

by Eric Foner

Finally, in September, came the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and on January 1, 1863, the final edict, a turning point in national policy as well as in the character of the war. In effect, it transformed a war of armies into a conflict of societies. In December 1861, Lincoln had admonished Congress that the Civil War must not degenerate into “a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle.” The Emancipation Proclamation announced that this was precisely what it must become. Of the Proclamation’s provisions, few were more essential to breathing life into the promise of emancipation than the massive enrollment of blacks into military service. By the war’s end, some 180,000 blacks had served in the Union Army.