Throughout the Civil War, Lincoln developed plans to bring the nation back together and to give the enslaved their freedom. He led the Union to victory during the Civil War in 1861, and issued the Executive Order known as the Emancipation Proclamation which is what freed the slaves in the slave-holding Southern States and went into effect in January of the year 1863.
He helped slaves earn their equality, made the nation a whole, bound the country back together, and he even helped families reunite with each other after the war.
Following Lincolns murder on April 14, 1865, when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth one week after the Civil War, Republicans in Congress moved to control Reconstruction. After Lincolns death, his successor, President Johnson, continued on with the process of Reconstruction, and rebuilding the country.
