“In the end, the Union Army settled the issue and freed the slaves, and the Reconstruction governments confiscated most of the land for failure to pay property taxes.”
The idea that the North “fought to free the slaves” was controversial then and remains so.
No one disputes the North used armed force to destroy most of the South, and later levied confiscatory taxes to confiscate property they wanted.
Recruiting posters from the Civil War, encouraged men to join the colors, with one or both slogans: Save the Union and Free the Slaves. Kansas called themselves the Free State and it didn’t mean free stuff.
The North didn’t fight to end slavery. It went to war to preserve the Union and won. The South went to war to preserve an economic system based on the use of slave labor and lost everything.