https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Lincoln%27s_75,000_volunteers
75k troops called up to volunteer and get 6 weeks of training, by 16,000 officers as this was less expensive than following the UK method of abolishing Slavery through civil and peaceful procedures of payment from 30yrs prior. Lincoln's cabinet thought this military buildup was money better spent, for in the long run, they could also benefit for several decades from total control of the outcome with railroads, Land Grant Colleges, The Homestead Act and Reconstruction Land Grabs and Re-Education Compliance Camps.
Grease for wheels of Choo Choo, 3rd Industrial Revolution of Iron Ore, Steel Production for Rails, Cars, & Steam Engines. Dynamite for blasting Tunnels. Slavery is SLAVE LABOR as a natural resource. The Northern Democrats Supplied and Used cost effective Chinese, Irish, and German Labor instead, as the South was set up to use African American Slavery to build the Southern Route. Of the 5 planned, and the first of which was completed within 5yrs of the end of the Civil War, the Southern route took longer, yet was likely the easiest to complete for it posed the least topographical challenges. 1864 election, the Union Gen. McLellan was North Dem, Presidential Candidate vs. Lincoln.
Lincoln dropped VP Rep./Hamlin, for Dem./Johnson
The officers of both North & South had been one unit in the Mexican/American War; and the Spoils of that War was Army Corps of Engineers Topographical Mapping of Sea to Shining Sea 4 Railroads, and 1 border to border North South San Diego to Seattle or Mexico to Canada Choo Choo.
Ask Mel Brooks or watch Blazing Saddles Movie
The North, Free Soil Party/Republicans wanted to Abolish Slavery, not because they were more Virtuous, yet because they had iron ore natural resources, and Steel Manufacturing Plant Plans, and designs on populating the continent from coast to coast to gain property taxes, precious metals mining for coining money, and securing national security borders from sea to sea, w/o making the Rich Democrat slave owners in the south more rich.
So YES, the Civil War is and was First and Foremost, and Lastly about SLAVERY, and ALWAYS WILL BE...and it makes it also true simultaneously that the North Benefited all the Way to the Bank,
as Slave owners and their sons needed to be killed, Bankrupted and Demoralized for decades.
The birth of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is Upon us Now, and the fight for control outcomes is as severe.
