Before the war ends, citizens elect Abraham Lincoln as president of the Union. September twenty-second of 1862, he issues the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln declares all black men who fight for the Confederacy free. Later, in 1863, he makes every slave in designated parts of the South free. Lincoln writes those included and not included as, “ARKANSAS, TEXAS, LOUISIANA -- except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plcquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. C[???]s, St. James, Ascension Assumption, Terre [???]ne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and O[???]ns, including the City of New-Orleans -- MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA FLORIDA, GEORGIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, NORTH CAROLINA and VIRGINIA -- except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.”…