" once, Lincoln was confronting one of the deepest crises of his presidency. For months it had been clear to many, from George Whitman and Henry Abbott to the president’s cabinet, that the Emancipation Proclamation would be only a sad joke if Lincoln had no power to force the Southern states to comply. His latest attempt to impose his will upon the South had ended in the slaughter on Marye’s Heights. His promise of freedom to the enslaved millions within the Confederacy now looked embarrassingly empty. Less than three weeks before he was scheduled to sign the measure, it seemed likely that the president "

― John Matteson , A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation