EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION AND GETTYSBURG ADDRESS Shortly after the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg), Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation , which took effect on January 1, 1863, and freed all of the slaves in the rebellious states but left those in the border states (loyal to the Union) in bondage. Though Lincoln once maintained that his “paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery,” he nonetheless came to regard emancipation as one of his greatest achievements, and would argue for the passage of a constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after his death in 1865). Two important Union victories in July 1863–at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania–finally turned the tide of the war. General George Meade missed the opportunity to deliver a final blow against Lee’s army at Gettysburg, and Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksbur