Existing comment:
After Monocacy:
Lincoln Re-elected:
In the presidential election of 1864, soldiers for the first time voted from the field. Though they would bear the heaviest burden in a continued war, they voted overwhelmingly (78%) in favor of Abraham Lincoln. The nation followed their lead, re-elected Lincoln by a 53% majority. The war would continue.
Maryland and Slavery:
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling."
-- President Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Albert Hodges, April 4, 1864
The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, had freed slaves only in the Confederate states. On November 1, 1864, Maryland abolished slavery on its own. One year later, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution officially abolished slavery nationwide.
While emancipation meant freedom, it did not bring equality. Many newly-freed slaves continued to work for their former owners -- with few rights and for meager pay. |