In today’s world, we take for granted our modern communication modes, which permit us to receive news of interest almost instantaneously. However, back in the time of the Civil War, communication came primarily through the means of community centers, pamphlets, and newspapers of all sorts, of which, the fastest way to communicate from one area of the nation to the other, was done through the amazing telegraph. That said, those who could most appreciate these ways of communicating recent news, were those that typically lived in communities of some size, so as to take the best advantage of telegraphs and the like. However, it has to be remembered that the South had seceded from the Union of States, and had previously put into place restrictions as to what news was permitted or not permitted to be disseminated to those rebellious States. Further to the point, the telegraph was thereby controlled by Southern interests and the Southern point of view, thereby essentially indicating that the news as distributed to Southerners was typically heavily biased to the viewpoint of those that were its leaders and its censors. This thus indicated, that despite Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, the news that all “slaves, are and henceforward shall be free,” was the exact type of news that slaveowners would have a very strong vested interest in not seeing being known or distributed to those that were their slaves. In short, despite being freed back on January 1, 1863, that news, would have to be spread primarily through the slave grapevine and whether or not believed, was left to those that were enslaved, for those that were in slavery, knew for a certainty, the penalty for abandonment of their job duties, or in being a runaway.
So too, it’s important to understand, that not only were the vast majority of slaves, illiterate, but also that plantations were in many a case, large in size, so that, slaves from one plantation to another, did not often have the opportunity to communicate with one another in a meaningful way, or even to have the chance to contemplate important breaking news, when so heard. Still, many a slave, did get the news of their emancipation, and believed such, and thereby looked upon the armies of the North as being their destination of choice, so as to be not only protected by those armies and their armaments, but also to be fed and to have shelter, and thereby also to distance themselves day by day, ever further from their previous condition of servitude.
Yet, it has to be said, though slaves were emancipated in 1863, it was found that even at the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, a sizeable number of those in slavery did not honestly know that they were free or did not have the capacity to express that freedom, because they lack agency or the protection of the Union to do so. Further to the point, when Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865, the belief of being freed was severely discounted when it was rumored that because of Lincoln’s assassination, their emancipation had now been voided. So then, the reality of emancipation, for many that were enslaved was not effectively January 1, 1863, but rather was considerably later for many so enslaved, because they were rightfully fearful that to believe in a myth or a rumor, could make them to suffer the reality of the lash, even to the point of death.