“People did benefit from the war.
Certainly the slaves that would no longer be routinely raped, or assaulted benefited.
Certainly the people who would no longer be routinely kidnapped by slave catchers benefited.
Certainly southern women who were passed diseases by their husbands, after said husband spent a few hours in the slave cabins raping slaves benefited.
Certainly the laborers whose wages would no longer be depressed by slave competition benefited.
Certainly the white southern militia no longer coerced to go on slave patrol benefited.
Slave catchers, slave rapers, and those who gained sexual satisfaction from assaulting slaves probably cried a lot.”
Ironic you mention this because that was something the southern slave experienced but not the northern slaves that the war did not free. That’s right, Lincoln did not free the slaves with the emancipation proclamation. It took the 13th Amendment to do that .
May I direct you to post 109?
The 13th Amendment freed only 50,000 of the 4,000,000 American slaves.
Most were freed, over 3M, by the Emancipation Proclamation, with the others freed by various state actions.
The EP freed those >3M slaves immediately. Enforcing their freedom took the rest of the war, but as the Union Army advanced, they enforced the law and the slaves were freed.
Lincoln also wisely decided not to pick a war with Britain while the insurrection was still unsettled.
“One war at a time” he said.
Politics is the art of the possible.
The 13th Amendment freed only about 50,000 slaves, but was a good thing to that exent. Some 3 million had been freed by the combination of the EP and the advancing federal armies, a much better thing for the various slaves.
Sherman’s army particularly sought out large plantations during their march to the sea. The slaves were usually happy to point out where provisions were hidden, and where the US Army was, the whippings of slaves would end.
Junteenth is the celebration of the date when Texas slaves were notified of the EP. Of course the slave power hid that document from the slaves as much as possible, but by your count that should be blamed on Lincoln too, right?