The News That Changed History: Galveston’s First Print of General Order No. 3

Archival ID: 1865_06_20_Flakes_Bulletin_Galveston_TX_P2

(Exhibit A: Microfilm Print of General Orders, No. 3 via Flake’s Tri-Weekly Bulletin, June 20, 1865)

Archival Transcription: General Orders, No. 3

[Official.]
HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF TEXAS,
Galveston, Texas, June 19th, 1865.

General Orders, No. 3.

The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States “all slaves are free.” This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

By order of
Major General GRANGER.
F. W. EMERY, Major, A. A. General.

The Story Behind the Ink: Why This Document Shook the World

To understand why this specific news column matters, we have to look at the landscape of Texas in June 1865. The American Civil War was over, and President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years earlier. Despite this, over 250,000 enslaved African Americans in Texas remained in bondage. Because Texas was geographically isolated at the westernmost edge of the Confederacy, it had become a refuge for slaveholders fleeing the Union army, many of whom deliberately withheld the news of freedom to sustain forced labor through another harvest cycle.

This multi-year enforcement delay ended on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with roughly 2,000 Union troops. His immediate task was to establish federal authority and enforce wartime emancipation orders across a state that had resisted compliance. General Granger drew up General Orders, No. 3 as an official military directive to formally announce that the institution of chattel slavery was legally dead in the state of Texas.

(Exhibit B: Original Handwritten Manuscript Ledger of General Orders, No. 3 Click image to view high-resolution archive version)

Handwritten Manuscript Transcription

[Head Quarters District of Texas]

[Galveston Texas June 19, 1865]

General Orders N. 3.

The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States “all Slaves are free”. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former Masters and Slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

The Freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

[By order of Major General Granger]

F. W. Emery
Maj. & A. A. Genl.

Archival Note on the Handwritten Manuscript: This document represents the permanent military baseline written directly into the official Headquarters record book by the Union command in Galveston. While Ferdinand Flake’s newspaper print brought the public declaration to the streets, this handwritten text represents the official record sent back to Washington to signify compliance. The clear, deliberate cursive hand documents the precise moment federal administrative authority overwrote generations of forced local oppression.

Public Domain Source Citation: From the holdings of the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Record Group 393, Part II, Entry 5543, District of Texas, General Orders Issued. Prepared by officers of the United States Federal Government as part of official duties under Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.

The next morning, Tuesday, June 20, 1865, the text was given to local printer Ferdinand Flake, a unionist German immigrant who operated Flake’s Tri-Weekly Bulletin. Printed directly on page 2 under the simple heading “Official,” the community read the declaration that laid the groundwork for modern history: “The people of Texas are informed that… ‘all slaves are free.’” For the families who had spent generations under the system of slavery, this print was a legal shield. It transformed what had been an unforced executive proclamation into an active military enforcement on the ground.

Historically, the most significant element of the document is the introduction of the term “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property.” This specific vocabulary moved the conversation beyond basic release from forced labor. By writing “absolute equality” into a military order, the federal government fundamentally transformed the legal identity of formerly enslaved people. It legally acknowledged their citizenship and human rights, laying a permanent baseline for the long Civil Rights struggles that followed in the Reconstruction era.

This fragile news column from Flake’s Bulletin stands as the direct, primary record of Juneteenth. It is a physical witness to the exact moment when legal freedom was brought to Texas. Every modern Juneteenth celebration, community gathering, and historical reflection traces its baseline back to the typesetting preserved in this archive. It reminds us of both the victory of emancipation and the deep human cost of delayed justice.

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