On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln announced that he would
issue a formal emancipation of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States
of America that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863. None did
return and the actual order, signed and issued January 1, 1863, took effect
except in locations where the Union had already mostly regained control.Total
abolition of slavery was finalized by the Thirteenth Amendment which took effect
in December 1865.The freedom of 3.1 million of the nation’s 4 million slaves was proclaimed, and immediately 50,000 of them were freed, with nearly all the rest
seeing freedom as Union armies advanced.

First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln