Great Grandpa Josiah, Did You Know?

The official holiday is called Juneteenth in the United States. The people of Galveston did not know they were free and found out two years after the original date of proclamation, on January 1, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. Emancipation Day is a holiday celebrated to remember the end of slavery. Three million slaves living in the Confederate states were freed by Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation, however, two more years would pass, before the news reached African Americans living in Texas. It was only as Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, the state’s residents learned that slavery had been abolished.

Confederate citizens no longer recognized Lincoln’s authority. Southern slaveholders, felt no obligation to follow Lincoln’s orders. The war was fought until force and the intervention from Union forces, brought about the Civil War’s conclusion.

Josiah C. Miller had fought for the Union during the…