The World the War Made Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 1, Foner begins his examination of the Reconstruction era with the Emancipation Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. The proclamation freed some 3 million slaves in the parts of the South that were in rebellion, but did not affect the nearly 1 million slaves in loyal states or parts of the Union-controlled South. Slavery had been deteriorating as an institution since the beginning of the war two years before, accelerated in the border states like Kentucky by the enlistment of blacks in the Union forces. As the Union army pushed into the South, they made increased use of available black labor and became, in Foner's words, "an army of liberation." (p. 10). The Emancipation Proclamation had also brought the slavery issue to the front of the conflict between the states. What had been a...