The Debunker: Did the Emancipation Proclamation End Slavery?  by
Ken Jennings  Even though the Civil War hasn’t receded all that
far into the past—the Associated Press reported last month that
two children-of-Civil-War-vets are still alive and well and
receiving government veterans’ benefits!—we may not remember
very much about it. This month, Ken “Burns” Jennings will reveal
that a lot of what you think you know about the Civil War is a
bunch of Bull Run.  Civil War Myth #3: The Emancipation
Proclamation Freed the Slaves.  Say what you will about the
recent work of Steven Spielberg, at least it’s helped to shoot
down a lot of historical myths about Abraham Lincoln. For
example, most Americans dimly remembering their tenth-grade
history class probably assume that slavery in the Republic was
ended by the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. But
as the movie Lincoln makes clear, abolition didn’t actually
happen for almost three more years, when the Thirteenth
Amendment was ratified in December 1865.  R