Abraham Lincoln's historic Proclamation of 1863 freed the Negro slaves in the rebellious southern states and ultimately led to the passage of the 13th Amendment, which has greatly influenced our own times as well. This book by a well-known historian is a dramatic, significant account of the critical events that moved Lincoln to issue his famous edict in the midst of the bloodiest civil war in history.

The slavery issue was at the center of the hostile feeling between North and South, but there were other factors as well. The rivalry on all fronts, social, economic and racial, grew in intensity until the whole country was split by hatred. Lincoln foresaw the crisis that was coming when he said in a speech in Illinois: "'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'"

This was the situation that faced Abraham Lincoln when on that chilly February morning in 1861, he boarded the train at Springfield that would take him to Washington, D.C. to become the 16th President of the United States and possibly the last President of a united nation.

Earl Schenck Miers, an outstanding authority of this phase of American history, paints an unforgettable picture of America at its greatest time of testing, when the future of the Union itself was being decided and when the bonds of shame were finally cut from a persecuted and enslaved people.

From the dust jacket