Well, there was the emancipation proclamation. Also his efforts to get the 13th amendment passed.
There’s also the last paragraph of the letter he sent to Horace Greeley. For some reason lost causers always “forget” to include this last paragraph of the letter, like the writer of the above article.
“I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.”
This belief alone, that all men everywhere should be free, puts him morally head and shoulders above any leader of the confederacy.
Are these things evidence that President Lincoln was “fighting to free the slaves?”
Based on Lincoln's expressed words, you have to question if “free” then actually means what “free” is thought to mean today.
Said Lincoln: “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races … I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
Perhaps Lincoln's "free" meant free to leave the country.