While Mary Lincoln struggles with her grief, Abraham Lincoln becomes consumed with the nation’s tragedy and issues a defining statement of his presidency: the Emancipation Proclamation.

Tormented by her grief and losing grip on sanity, Mary Lincoln turns to spiritualists for comfort. Though bowed down with sorrow, her husband never loses sight of the tragedy consuming the nation. With the war going badly in the east, enlistments drying up and morale low, Abraham Lincoln takes a step that changes the country forever and, in doing so, he changes himself. On January 1, 1863, the 16th president issues the Emancipation Proclamation, liberating millions of Americans from bondage. The move turns the Civil War from a conflict over union into a struggle for freedom.