While the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) prioritized Rebel states, exempted loyal border slave states (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri), Tennessee, and Union-controlled areas of Virginia and Louisiana, it confirmed black military enrollment and forecast the general emancipation. Believing the Union's victory would liberate them, slaves fled by thousands to Union lines and hurt Rebel manpower. As workers and soldiers, they helped catalyze abolition. The US Colored Troops and Navy enlisted 200,000 enslaved and free blacks. Many fought in key battles or campaigns, which liberated slave families and communities. The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery. Congress required seceded states to ratify it, along with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments, during Reconstruction.

African Americans celebrated freedom. “I didn't know what ‘free’ meant, and I askes Mrs. Harris if I was free,” a freedwoman stated. “She says I was free but was goin’ to repent of it. But she told me she wasn't going to whip me anymore; and she never did, cose my father came and took me away” (Berlin, Favreau, and Miller, 1988, p. 215). Freedmen and women reclaimed family members. They also created annual celebrations, like Emancipation Day in North Carolina or Juneteenth in Texas, throughout the country.