The American Civil War: A New Birth of Freedom (Part 4)

Five days after Antietam, Lincoln signs the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, transforming the war from a constitutional crisis to a moral crusade. "All persons held as slaves...shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." The proclamation doesn't free all enslaved people, but it changes everything—making European recognition of the Confederacy impossible, authorizing Black military service, and redefining what the Union is fighting for. Nearly 200,000 Black soldiers in Union uniform...