General Order No. 3

The order, and Granger's enforcement of it, is the central event commemorated by the holiday of Juneteenth, which originally celebrated the end of slavery in Texas.

The order was not read aloud by the Union Army, but it was posted around town, and communicated to most African Americans by slavemasters.

The document is physically located in the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C., and is maintained by the Textual Records Division.

3 among a series of other recent general orders issued by Granger, which it described as "interesting news from Texas" under the headline "The Slaves All Free.

"[5] A common misconception holds that the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in the United States, or that the General Order No.

In fact, the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified and proclaimed in December 1865, was the article that made slavery illegal in the United States nationwide, not the Emancipation Proclamation.