Share Spotlight: The Emancipation Proclamation

Read The Emancipation Proclamation

Since the Battle of Stones River has so much to do with the Emancipation Proclamation, in fact the only reason it happened was that Lincoln wanted a victory before it went into effect, I thought it would be a fitting Share Spotlight.

Now the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free a single slave (seriously, it "freed" slaves in territories not controlled by the Union) but it did provide for the raising of Colored Regiments, which meant that those enslaved people who freed themselves when the Union army came to town had a place to go and a way to fight to keep their freedom. When you see USCT on a Civil War era headstone, that's a US Colored Troop, many of whom built and are buried in the Stones River National Cemetery.