Because the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to states in the Union, remaining enslaved people were not liberated until the 13th Amendment was ratified on Dec. 18, 1865.

On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and read aloud General Order No. 3.

Cordell read portions of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed most of the country’s slaves in 1863 but forced those in Texas to wait more that two years to escape ...

It was 160 years ago that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — after the Civil War's end and two years after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

It was 160 years ago that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — after the Civil War's end and two years after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

It was 160 years ago that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — after the Civil War's end and two years after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.