On June 19, 1865, slavery in the United States—an institution founded on the bondage of African Americans—officially ended. Ten weeks after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Army Major General Gordon Granger and his command arrived at Galveston, Texas to reintroduce federal law to the former Confederate state. This included enforcement of General Order No. 3, which emancipated enslaved black Texans—among the last in the nation. Fittingly, his command included the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry which was comprised largely of formerly enslaved men such as Private James Murray. Their arrival in Texas nearly two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was momentous. Murray witnessed the final bastion of black enslavement disintegrate; an anniversary Americans have since commemorated as “Juneteenth.”

Murray was born enslaved in Petersburg, Virginia, around 1842; by December 1864 he was in Baltimore, Maryland. Capitalizing on the Emancipation Proclamation, Murray freed himself from bondage by enlisting in Company I of the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry regiment. He joined the Army of the Potomac as it besieged Confederate troops outside of Petersburg. In the following 3 months, Murray served in the trenches outside Petersburg and participated in the Appomattox Campaign which culminated with the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia’s surrender on April 9, 1865. A month later, U.S. General Ulysses Grant ordered the all black XXV Corps, including Murray, to Texas.

Texas saw relatively little Civil War action which meant thousands of black Texans were still enslaved when Murray arrived in mid-June 1865. Much of the black population was unaware of the Emancipation Proclamation which had legally freed them since January 1863. On June 19, 1865, Granger’s General Order No. 3 ended slavery in this last region where it persisted. Murray and his compatriots’ presence helped enforce federal emancipation and liberated thousands of black Americans from bondage. In 1980, Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as a holiday. 

On September 8, 1921, James Murray died and was buried at Alexandria National Cemetery, Virginia (Section B, Site 3601).


Juneteenth celebration 19 June 1900. Held at Austin, TX. (Photo by Mrs. Charles Stephenson, 19 June 1900. https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth124054/)

Juneteenth celebration 19 June 1900. Held at Austin, TX. 

Alexandria National Cemetery, VA

Obituary published in Alexandria Gazette, September 9, 1921.

JAMES MURRAY

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