None the less, after the early southern successes the north was forced to shift their rhetoric to that of slavery AND EVENTUALLY DELIVER ABOLITION in order to stave off the snowballing desertion problem. Lincoln had to hold up a cause that soldiers (many of them conscripts) would die for. Neither economics nor preserving the union in spite of the Constitution provided that.
It is thus dishonest to attempt to claim either that the war hadn't become about slavery as far as the troops were concerned by the end of the war or to claim that this was a secondary matter. In fact , to claim the latter one would basically have to show that the North didn't need an army to fight the south.
So, in spite of my Scotch and Irish ancestry I am forced to submit that the Brits did the right thing on this issue in supporting the south contingent of enacting abolition as a prerequisite.
You think the majority of Union soldiers wanted to fight for black freedom? The majority of them hated black people. Yes, we've all seen the cherry picked letters from the abolitionist kooks in the Union Army, but I very much doubt this represented the dominant opinion among the ranks.
If it was the cause of black freedom that motivated these men, then how do you explain the New York riots where they killed mostly free black men? Why were they shouting slogans like "Our lives are worth less than a slave!" (Noting that for $300.00 you could get out of the war, but a slave cost $1,000.00 at that time.)
I think you are projecting a modern day morality on those men. I believe that most of them didn't give a crap about the slaves, they fought because they were drafted into doing so, and would be labeled as cowards or traitors if they did not.
Sure, the government pumped up the propaganda like "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Battle Cry of Freedom", but propaganda for your army was routine for most of human history.
They grabbed the Scots Irish right off the boat and forced them into the army. How much sh*t could they give for people whom they had never seen, especially when they were fleeing poverty in their former country?
They fought because they were put into a position where they were forced to fight, not because they cared about Black folk. Had Lincoln ordered them to stop fighting, they would have done that, and been greatly relieved.