"EMANCIPATION DAY" IN MISSOURI

http://larryslibrary.blogspot.com/2014/05/gen.html "Emancipation Day" has been traditionally celebrated by black Missourians on the first weekend in August, since the end of the Civil War, but, outside of St. Louis, and Kansas City, anomalously. Yet, in such places like St. Joseph, Clinton, Joplin, Carruthersville, Hannibal, Jefferson City, Boonville, and others, such emancipation celebrations have been held, annually. My research reveals that this commemoration probably dates back to the military order that was issued by John C. Fremont, "The Pathfinder," on August 31, 1861, as a military measure. He was the Commander of the Department of the West, and based in St. Louis, Missouri. Fremont's order freed a number of Missouri slaves, the precise number being unknown. Enough were freed by it, however, to raise the hackles, of President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln rescinded Fremont's Emancipation Order on September 11, 1861, in response to impassioned cries of Copperheads--Southern-sympathizing Republicans and Unionist Democrats--who claimed such an order would chase border states like Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland into the Confederacy. Lincoln also removed Fremont. Another Union General David Hunter, in South Carolina, did the same thing, in May 1862, which Lincoln again countermanded. A year later, Lincoln issued his own Emancipation Proclamation, also as another military measure, on September 22, 1862, which was to become effective January 1, 1863, unless the Confederacy capitulated, surrendered, laid down its arms. The South did nothing. So, black "contrabands" rushed to Union lies seeking that "freedom" pronounced by Lincoln's Executive Order of January 1. Its main benefit was to enable the enlistment of black troops, nearly 200,000 of whom later fought and won the freedom of their people by force of arms, even as they preserved the United States, by force of arms, having destabilized and destroyed the South's economic, military foundation, by fighting for the North.