Union Solider Rejoices at the Emancipation Proclamation

Jones was a Union soldier in the Illinois infantry fighting the Confederates in Tennessee. In this letter he responds enthusiastically to news of President Lincoln’s preliminary Emancipation Proclamation: “The ‘year of Jubilee’ has indeed come to the poor Slave. . . . The name of Abraham Lincoln will be handed down to posterity as one of the greatest benefactors of his country, not surpassed by the immortal Washington himself.”