“He had no legal authority to free any slaves in the Confederacy.”
The official position of the U.S. government was that there was no Confederacy. Only naughty little states. Even if that was a legalistic fiction, the Union army in due course made it hard fact.
They won the war, after all, right? Certainly at some point former members of the CSA came back under federal authority, yes? Well, then, mark it there that the slaves became free.
That is where I was marking it.
Hence, in 1863, he did not free any slaves in the Confederacy.