January 28, 1863

Dear my son, Jonathan,

I’m sorry I had to leave so suddenly. However, twenty-seven days ago, on January 1st, our president, Abraham Lincoln, declared the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation made slavery illegal in all the states that seceded from the Union. This supposedly removed slavery from most of the country, but because Lincoln decided to only ilegalize it in the states that seceded, there is now only a small pocket of slavery in the slave states that didn’t secede. Many confederate states won’t free their slaves until someone forces them to. However, for now, my job is to fight slavery in Missouri, a slave state that didn’t secede.

I was on the road to Jefferson City, just a week after the proclamation was declared. I know I left pretty suddenly. I won’t see you for a while, but I will write to you as frequently as possible. Yesterday, for the first time since I arrived, I publicly spoke downtown with a few other abolitionists I planned to meet before I got here. A few people angrily disagreed with our message, but we received a surprisingly large amount of support from people walking by. There is a small team of abolitionists that I am going to meet with tomorrow, so we can plan a meeting with a Congressman that represents this area. I have a feeling that this month is going to be very busy, but I’ll be home before you know it.

I hate this war. I know it’s made your life much more complicated than it should be, but I need to keep fighting until slavery is no longer permitted anywhere in this country. If all the fighting should change one thing, this is it. No matter what anyone says, I, and many other people, are in this war, fighting for the abolition of slavery. The war will have been worth it, if slavery is ended. I’ll be home as soon as possible, and I’ll write as often as I can.

-Your father, Alfred Sinclair