Historical Event
Issuance of General Order No. 3 (June 19, 1865)
On June 19, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger, having arrived in Galveston to assume command of the Department of Texas, issued General Order No. 3 from his headquarters at the Osterman Building, informing the people of Texas that, in accordance with the Emancipation Proclamation, all enslaved people were free. The order came more than two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had legally taken effect, delayed by the Confederacy's continued control of Texas and the slow pace of Union occupation reaching the state's interior.
Why This Matters
This order matters because it marks the effective end of chattel slavery in the last Confederate state to receive that news, and the date of its issuance, June 19th, became the basis for Juneteenth, now a federal holiday marking Black freedom nationally. The order's delayed arrival in Texas is itself a lesson in how slaveholders exploited distance and disorder to extend bondage even after it had been legally abolished, forcing enslaved Texans to wait far longer than most of the South for their freedom to be enforced.
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