....”About halfway through the Civil War — Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address which called for the end to slavery...”
.........I always thought he freed them after Antietam....that was in early fall of ‘62....Gettysburg was fought in July ‘63
I doubled checked with my Civil War book and you are correct sir! (sorta)
Five days after the battle, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation -- September 22, 1862 and the second one was issued in January 1, 1863. But these were just Presidential orders NOT laws passed by Congress.
All slaves were officially freed with the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 18, 1865.
These dates proves that the Union did not go into the Civil War to free the slaves like Ron Paul claims but were implemented as a punishment to the South for daring to succeed.
I was incorrect too. The Gettysburg Address was just a famous speech that invoked human equality.