Program

NYS Historic

Subject

House, People

Location

6081 Main St, Sodus, NY 14551, USA

Lat/Long

43.193689, -77.092432

Grant Recipient

Town of Sodus Historical Society

Civil War Major General Gordon Granger (1821-1876) was born and raised in Sodus, Wayne County, New York. His father, Gaius Granger owned a house and property in the hamlet of Joy in Sodus. In 1841, at the age of 19 years old, Gordon was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1845, thus beginning a military career that would span the rest of his life, including service in the Mexican-American War and the United States Civil War.

During the Civil War, Granger served in Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. He was promoted to the rank of major general in 1862. At the end of the Civil War, he assumed general command of the District of Texas at Galveston in 1865. On June 19, 1865, Granger issued General Order No. 3 at Galveston. The order informed the people of Texas of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation which had freed all enslaved people on January 1, 1863. Granger’s General Order No. 3 read:

“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, “all slaves are free”. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

Granger stayed in Texas for approximately two months, while a provisional government was established. He was eventually given command of the District of New Mexico, a post he held until his sudden death in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1876. His obituary published in the January 12, 1876 edition of the New York Daily Herald offered a brief description of the military career man:

“In appearance General Granger was of commanding stature; in manners he was easy and natural, and was agreeable in conversation. He was a strict disciplinarian, but was in no respect tyrannical. Obedience he enforced, and he was loved by his command as well as respected by those whom the fortunes of war made his enemies.”

June 19, 1865 marked the beginning of annual celebrations of the emancipation of African Americans. In 2021, the United States designated June 19th as Juneteenth National Independence Day, a federal holiday in commemoration of the date that enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas received word of the Emancipation Proclamation as a result of Granger’s General Order No. 3.