h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The page on "The Life of Abraham Lincoln - 16th President of the United States" (at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2998434) states that the final Emancipation Proclamation "did not immediately free any slaves" and "did not really do anything, because the Union couldn't enforce the decree on the Confederacy until the war was won."

This is a common misconception. An examination of the text of the final Emancipation Proclamation (EP) shows that the areas excluded are listed by state and county--there is no general statement that areas under Union control on the effective date are excluded.

Although the exempted areas include most of the areas of the CSA states under Union control, they did not include all. The coastal areas of the Carolinas and Georgia, much of Northern Virginia (as well as Jefferson County, which later became part of West Virginia) and northeastern Arkansas were under Union occupation on January 1, 1863, and were not exempted from the terms of the EP. Although execution varied from one Union commander to another, many officers began freeing slaves in the occupied and not exempted areas right away.

Among the places where this happened were Winchester, Virginia [Richard Duncan, Beleaguered Winchester: A Virginia Community at War (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2007), pp. 139-40], Corinth, Mississipi [Ira Berlin et al., eds, Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation 1861-1867, Vol. 1: The Destruction of Slavery (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 260], the Sea Islands along the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia [William Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, 1861-1865 (NY: Viking Press, 2001), p. 234], Key West, Florida ["Important From Key West", New York Times Feb. 4, 1863, p. 1], and Port Royal, South Carolina ["Interesting from Port Royal", New York Times Jan. 9, 1863, p. 2].

For a scholarly account with a map, see William C. Harris, "After the Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln's Role in the Ending of Slavery", North & South vol. 5 no. 1 (December 2001), map on p. 49. The exact number of slaves granted immediate freedom on January 1, 1863 cannot be determined given the state of the record, but it was clearly in the thousands. The New York Times report from the Union enclave of Port Royal, South Carolina (Jan. 9, 1863), shows that 3,000 blacks were informed of their liberation under the EP there.

Thanks for this. You're right.

The purpose of that part of the entry was, itself, meant to correct a common misconception that the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves of the South. I'm sure you can appreciate that in an entry of such large breadth, which is meant to be as brief as possible, I didn't want to go only lengthy diversions about a few regions of the south under Union control. Nevertheless, you're right that my original wording was inaccurate, and I'll ask that this part of the entry be rephrased to reflect that.

I'll ask that "the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free any slaves." be changed to "the Emancipation Proclamation did little immediate emancipating." And I'll ask that "did not really do anything, because the Union couldn't enforce the decree on the Confederacy until the war was won." be changed to "had no immediate impact, because the Union couldn't enforce the decree on the better part of the Confederacy until the war was won."

Thanks