Jan 1st, 1863 Pres. Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation but Slavery did not end.

Pres. Lincolns EP / credit - Collection of mrkash.com
Some of the headlines in the days following Jan 1st, 1863 would read. “President announces Emancipation Proclamation” President Lincoln was having practical political concerns about not just ending America’s Civil War and to prevent other nations from formal recognition of the Confederate States of America. Mr. Lincoln and his concern for that “particular institution” was not a true form of emancipation nor abolition. Rather his need was to save this nation. As he wrote Horace Greeley, Mr., Lincoln stated that if saving the nation meant freeing all the slaves, he would do so. If it meant free some of them, he would do so but if it meant keeping them in bondage, he would do that also.
Having read and studied this war for years. What you have learned in school is NOT always what really happened. I say...”teach history as it was and not as it is”
 The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves only in The Confederate States of America controlled area and areas that were not under the control of the Union army.  NO UNION SLAVE STATE HAD IT’S SLAVES FREED.
So what did it really do and mean. Here are several aspects which should be noted.

• First, it was issued by Lincoln in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy as a "necessary war measure".
• Secondly, when issued it did not immediately free a single slave.  This is because its application was limited to those parts of North America which were still under the control of the armed forces of the Confederate States of America.  It did not apply to those Slave States, such as Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri which had not seceded from the Union, nor did it apply to those parts of the Confederate States of America (such parts of Virginia (which was later admitted to the Union as West Virginia) and Florida) which had been occupied by and remained under the control of US forces at that date.

These limitations (not freeing all the slaves) were necessary for constitutional reasons.  The President had no power to issue a proclamation to emancipate slaves generally.  Such a measure would have been unconstitutional and at his inauguration he had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution.  A decree purporting to free slaves generally would have had no effect as the USA was, and still is, governed by the rule of law.  He could only do so insofar as it could be categorized as a "necessary war measure". 
In the previous year, Congress, on the initiative of the President, passed legislation prohibiting slavery in the US Territories (which, in due course, became States of the Union) and provided for compensation of $300 a slave for slave owners in the District of Columbia.  Because of the earlier Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court, Congress had no power to abolish slavery in the States 
So what did it do to the Confederate States? 
First, it disrupted the agricultural economies of those States forming the Confederate States of America as slaves fled the plantations. 
The second effect was even more important in effecting the collapse of the Confederate States of America. 
The British government and the government of the Emperor Louis Napolean in France had been very sympathetic to the Confederate States of America, as it was in their interests to have a weak USA. The Emancipation Proclamation and the emancipation of slaves in the US Territories, however, cast the USA in the role to some, of the emancipator of slaves against the pro-slavery Confederate States of America. 
President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America also considered issuing an emancipation proclamation freeing the slaves in the constituent States in order to woo the British government and the French Empire whose support was critical to its survival.  This was, however, opposed by the slave owners and their allies, who were more concerned about the maintenance of slavery (and, if possible, its extension to the new US Territories in the West) than in preserving the fledging Confederate States of America. 
Later, after years of various Confederate Generals and politicians debated, the Confederate States offers military service to any Negro who wished to join. In exchange...freedom. Some had been used as solders and not just servants in local commands already.
So who did it cover and the numbers?
Below Ref - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation
The proclamation did not cover the 800,000 slaves in the slave-holding border states of Missouri, Maryland, West Virginia or Delaware, which had never declared a secession; slaves there were freed by separate state and federal actions. The state of Tennessee had already mostly returned to Union control, so it also was not named and was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were specified for the 48 counties that were in the process of forming West Virginia, as well as seven other named counties and two cities. Also specifically exempted were New Orleans and thirteen named parishes of Louisiana, all of which were also already mostly under Federal control at the time of the Proclamation.
The Emancipation Proclamation was ridiculed for freeing only the slaves over whom the Union had no power. Over 50,000 were freed the day it went into effect in parts of nine of the ten states to which it applied (Texas being the exception).In every Confederate state (except Tennessee and Texas), the Proclamation went into immediate effect in Union-occupied areas and at least 20,000 slaves were freed at once on January 1, 1863.
Additionally, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the emancipation of nearly all four million slaves as the Union armies advanced, and committed the Union to ending slavery, which was a controversial decision even in the North. Hearing of the Proclamation, more slaves quickly escaped to Union lines as the Army units moved south. As the Union armies advanced through the Confederacy, thousands of slaves were freed each day until nearly all (approximately 4 million, according to the 1860 census) were freed by July 1865.
Near the end of the war, abolitionists were concerned that while the Proclamation had freed most slaves as a war measure, it had not made slavery illegal. Several former slave states had already passed legislation prohibiting slavery; however, in a few states, slavery continued to be legal, and to exist, until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted.
This author contends another fact is the miss-information about JUNETEENTH (as celebrated here each year) and the EP.
JI have found after research that Juneteenth occurred on June 19, 1865 in the state of Texas. This is when the slaves of Texas received news that the war had ended and slavery was going to be abolished. (13th Am had not been signed). Up until that time it was still the law of the land. Slavery was not abolished by law until December 1865 with the passage of the 13th amendment although it was in the hands of congress from 1862 and during the later stages of 1865 while the war was still raging, congress took no action. Some states such as West Virginia did not ratify it until February 1866. Then still another amendment, the 14th, had to be passed to allow them the right that every American has and that is to vote. Ref - the author
The Emancipation Proclamation
By the President of the United States of America
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the executive will on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States."
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
William H. Seward, Secretary of State
(EP provided by the collection of the author)

Thanks to
John R Tucker Sr. as the author and contributor
I am an active living historian, provide Riderless Horse services, member of various Civil War programs and volunteer at ;
The Echoes Through Time Civil War Museum, Williamsville, NY
Pamplin Civil War Historical Park, Petersburg Virginia
Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond Va.
Member Sons of Confederate Veterans
Member Sons of Union Veterans Civil War
Member Civil War preservation Trust
Member Eastern Re-enactors Association

Henry Louis Stephens, untitled watercolor (c. 1863) of a man reading a newspaper with headline "Presidential Proclamation / Slavery".