[Emancipation Proclamation]. General Orders, No. 1. War Department Adjutant General's Office, Washington, January 2, 1863.

[LINCOLN, Abraham].

[Emancipation Proclamation]. General Orders, No. 1. War Department Adjutant General's Office, Washington, January 2, 1863.

"All persons held as slaves within any State shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free": Rare first War Department and fifth overall printing of the Emancipation Proclamation

Washington: Government Printing Office, January 2, 1863.

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Rare first War Department and fifth overall printing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Twelvemo, General Orders No. 1 extracted from the larger volume of orders for 1863, 4 pages, disbound. President Lincoln had intended to issue the order earlier in 1862 but deliberately delayed its release until after the Union's strategic victory at Antietam, at which point he announced the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. (General Order No. 139, September 22, 1862) which declared that all slaves held in rebelling states would be forever free from the first day of January 1863. The text of the final Emancipation Proclamation, present in this order, is noted for its direct and decisive language: "By the President of the United States of America ... That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom." The first printing for the War Department of General Orders No. 1 was distributed to various military outposts and bureaus throughout the United States. Based on the extensive research of Charles Eberstadt, the copy for the War Department was the fifth time the final version of the Emancipation Proclamation appeared in print on January of 1863, following three hastily prepared issues for the State Department and another for Lincoln's hometown Illinois States Journal newspaper in Springfield, Illinois. A copy of the War Department Printing was included in the Grolier Club's One Hundred Influential American Books Printed before 1900. Eberstadt 12; Grolier Club, One Hundred Influential American Books, 71; Streeter 1751. In near fine condition. Housed in a custom half morocco case. A scarce work.

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, represented a pivotal moment in the trajectory of the American Civil War and the broader struggle over the institution of slavery. Although it did not immediately free all enslaved individuals, the proclamation declared that all persons held as slaves in states or parts of states still in rebellion against the United States were to be henceforth free. This executive order, grounded in Lincoln's war powers as commander-in-chief, was intended primarily as a military measure to weaken the Confederacy by undermining its labor force and discouraging foreign powers from recognizing or supporting the secessionist cause. The proclamation also signaled a significant shift in Union war aims, reframing the conflict from a struggle solely to preserve the Union to one explicitly linked to the abolition of slavery. While its immediate legal impact was limited to areas outside Union control, the Emancipation Proclamation laid the groundwork for the eventual passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally abolished slavery throughout the United States.