June 19 in American History: Juneteenth and General Order No. 3

On June 19, 1865, U.S. Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3. The order announced that enslaved people in Texas were free. Although President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years earlier, freedom had not been fully enforced in Texas until Union troops arrived after the Civil War.