Mary Todd Lincoln was in mourning for her brother-in-law, Brig. General Ben Hardin Helm. He had died in the battle of Chickamauga, fighting for the Confederacy.Helm was commis­sioned as a colonel on October 19, 1861. He was promoted to brigadier general on March 14, 1862, and was given command of the 1^st Kentucky “Orphan” Brigade several months later. Helm maintained command of the Orphan Brigade through the Battle of Baton Rouge and with the brigade joined the Army of Tennessee, where he was with Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge throughout the Tullahoma and Chickamauga Campaigns in 1863, when he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 20, 1863. He died on the battlefield the following day, with his last word being “Victory.” Following his death, Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln went into private mourning at the White House,her niece recalling: “She knew that a single tear shed for a dead enemy would bring torrents of scorn and bitter abuse on both her husband and herself.” Emilie Todd Helm was granted safe passage to the White House in December 1863.

On this date in 1862, Nashville, Tennessee was taken by Federal troops and occupied. This move facil­itated Federal troop movement to send fresh troops to relieve Rosecrans and his men who were besieged in Chattanooga.

Gen. William Starke Rosecrans army,defeated at Chickamauga Creek, had managed to retreat and take a stronger position, but he was trapped. Washington decided to detach the 11^th and 12^th Corps from the Army of the Potomac to relieve Rosecrans. Union troops, already fatigued by action in Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, boarded railway cars headed west to Tennessee.

Today, in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This document freed all slaves residing in any of the states still in rebellion as of January 1, 1863. The procla­mation was announced one week after the costly Union victory of Antietam. This strategic move on Lincoln’s part forever linked the Southern cause with the defense of slavery. He hoped to discourage foreign powers from coming to the aid of the Confederacy by labeling it a slave nation. Many in the Union disagreed with the President’s decision: they wished only to keep the country whole and did not neces­sarily welcome the emanci­pation of the slaves, partic­ularly in the border states. Despite its controversy, the procla­mation had it’s hoped-for effect: anti-slavery Britain did not come to the aid of the Confederacy, delivering a crushing blow to the prospects of the South for victory.