Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his 75,000-man Army of the Tennessee were closing in on splitting the Confederacy in half, shattering the South’s ability to supply its troops.

As the Army’s authorizations slowly increased, the new (1853) Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and the future President of the Confederacy looked to reinvent how it operated.

Juneteenth commemorates the events of June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas when the last Black slaves of the Confederacy were ordered free.