October 2011

Northern

Source      Frémont Emancipation Proclamation

A career army officer, politician, and western explorer who had helped the United States secure California during the U.S.–Mexican War, John C. Frémont won a commission as a major general in 1861 and took command of Union forces in Missouri. The controversial proclamation he then issued claimed that any slaves confiscated from those taking arms against the Union would be freed. An irritated President Lincoln, who was trying not to inflame slave-owning Unionists in the border states, wrote to Freémont to pull the emancipation clause. Not long thereafter, Lincoln fired Freémont, but the bold proclamation would set Lincoln on the path of issuing his own emancipation proclamation in January 1863.