The Official Juneteenth General Order from 1865
On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s historic Emancipation Proclamation, U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3, which informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free.
Read about the official handwritten record of General Order No. 3, preserved at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.
