1865
Zoom in — months
Key events
- June 19, 1865Juneteenth: freedom reaches Texas
Union troops announce emancipation in Galveston — two and a half years after the Proclamation.
- December 6, 1865The 13th Amendment
Slavery is abolished — except as punishment for crime, a loophole that enables convict leasing.
- December 24, 1865The Ku Klux Klan is founded
A terror organization forms in Tennessee to attack Black citizens and Reconstruction.
- January 16, 1865Special Field Order No. 15 — "40 acres"
Sherman sets aside coastal land for freed families — a promise soon revoked.
- March 3, 1865The Freedmen's Bureau
A federal agency to aid the formerly enslaved with food, schools, and labor contracts.
- November 1865The Black Codes
Southern states pass laws to control freedpeople and force them back into labor.
Resources from this period
Primary sources·3
Primary source· Primary
The 13th Amendment (milestone document)
U.S. National Archives
The amendment abolishing slavery, ratified December 6, 1865.
Primary source· Primary
Freedmen's Bureau Records (RG 105)
U.S. National Archives
Federal records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands.
Primary source· Primary
Juneteenth — General Order No. 3 (original record)
U.S. National Archives
The original 1865 order announcing emancipation in Texas.