The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted on December 18, 1865, abolished slavery within the United States. Immediately before its ratification, slavery remained legal only in Kentucky and Delaware, while elsewhere enslaved people had been freed either by the Emancipation Proclamation or by state action. Although the Civil War was over, slavery was still legal in Kentucky in late 1865 because the Emancipation Proclamation did not legally affect the state. Emancipation was nevertheless advancing there, with more than 50 percent of young enslaved men freeing themselves by enlisting in the United States Army. After the Congressional Joint Resolution Freeing Families of Black Soldiers of March 3, 1865, the wives and children of these soldiers were also freed. Kentucky had rejected the Thirteenth Amendment on February 24, 1865, and did not finally ratify it until March 18, 1976. On March 8, 1865, the United States Congress freed the wives and children of the United States Colored Troops, a direct result of events at Camp Nelson, where 400 African American women and children were ejected from camp in November 1864 and 102 died of exposure and disease. Their deaths caused a national uproar that led both to the congressional act and to the establishment of the Home for Colored Refugees within Camp Nelson, which eventually housed over 3,000 African American women and children. Camp Nelson's chief quartermaster Captain Theron E. Hall and the Reverend John G. Fee led the protest after the November 1864 ejection of African American refugees.