Many in the South were openly critical of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which had been announced after the Battle of Antietam. In early October 1862, one of Richmond’s most prominent newspapers, the Whig, acknowledged that with a dash of Lincoln’s pen, the South’s investment in slavery would be destroyed, if the southern independence effort failed.
To Confederate Lieutenant Charles Colcock Jones, the son of a prominent Presbyterian minister and southern slave owner, Lincoln’s proclamation was “the crowning act of the series of black and diabolical transactions which have marked the entire course of his administration… a most infamous attempt to incite flight, murder, and rapine on the part of our slave population.” Many northern supporters of emancipation openly worried whether Lincoln’s proclamation would stiffen southern resistance and lengthen the duration of the war.