Without authority, Union General David Hunter declares all slaves in three states "forever free"

Major General David Hunter was a career Army officer with a long-term antipathy to slavery. As commander of the Department of the South, he had already begun recruiting black soldiers without authority and then issued his famous "General Order Number 11" which declared that since Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina were under federal martial law all slaves there were "declared forever free."  The Lincoln Administration, still politically committed to slow and compensated emancipation, declared this declaration void ten days later.  (By John Osborne)