Correct you are. Lincoln’s overriding motivation was to “preserve the union” which was a euphemism for maintaining ever more powerful dictatorial control in the central/federal government in Washington DC. Abolition of slavery was eventually used as a war tactic.There was, is, never will be a justification for the loss of 700,000 lives for the political abstraction of preserving the union.
No, there never will be, nor for the war against women and children waged in my fair state of Georgia.
Lincoln’s overriding reason for going to war was to get his hands on the taxes and tariffs the South paid annually. As he told John Baldwin, “If I let the South go, who will pay for my housekeeping.” After all, this railroad attorney needed to build a railroad for the people who put him in office.