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Lincoln’s priority was to keep United States as one country. After initial losses of the first battles, had to admit that the conduct of war, could only change it bymaking the war a battle against slavery and so could gain support for the Union both inside and outside.Consequently, the January 11, 1863, the second year of war, issued theEmancipation Proclamation, granting freedom to all slaves in areas still controlled by the Confederacy.

The Southern army won important victories in the first stage ofthe war, but in 1863 its commander, General Robert E. Lee, went to Pennsylvania. At Gettysburg he met a Union army, and so began the battle of greater magnitude everfought on American soil. After three days of desperate fighting, the Confederates were defeated.The Union Navy imposed a blockade quickly created severe shortages of militaryequipment and consumer goods in the confederation. Meanwhile, on the Mississippi River, the Union General, Ulysses S. Grant took the important city of Vicksburg. The Unionforces now controlled the entire Mississippi Valley, bisecting the Confederacy and choking her to the sea.

In 1864, a Union army under General William Tecumseh Shermanwent through Georgia destroying the field. Meanwhile, General Grant was fighting bitterly with the forces of Lee in Virginia. On April 2, 1865, Lee was forced to abandonRichmond, the capital of the Confederacy. A week later surrendered and all other Confederate forces surrendered soon after. On April 14, 1865 Lincoln was assassinated byactor John Wilkes Booth. On May 12, 1865, the Union attacked the Palmetto Ranch in Cameron County, on the border of Mexico, where Confederate forces still remained.