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The Emancipation Proclamation saved the Union. The war was not started to abolish slavery, it was started to preserve the Union. After the Emancipation Proclamation it became a war with a secondary purpose to emancipate the slaves.
In July 1861, the two armies were nearly equal in strength with less than 200,000 soldiers on each side; however at the peak of troop strength in 1863, Union soldiers outnumbered Confederate soldiers by a ratio of 2 to 1. The size of Union forces in January 1863 totaled over 600,000.May 6, 2015
In the war, both sides used African Americans for military purposes; in the South as slave labor and in the north as wage labor and military volunteers. Over 100,000 ex-slaves fought for the Union and over 500,000 fled their plantations for Union lines.
If the Confederacy had been defeated before the Emancipation Proclamation slavery would not have been abolished. Those who claim that the Civil War was not fought to end slavery during the first two years of the war are correct, but after the Emancipation Proclamation, the abolition of slavery became
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