What became President Lincoln's political strategy for ending the US Civil War?

Answer 1

What President Lincoln's generals could not do to end the US Civil War by military measures, Lincoln sought to do it via political methods. Lincoln sought to undermine the Confederacy by enticing the rebellious states back into the Union through a generous and liberal reconstruction plan. He aimed at states such as Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana. His plan was to redeem these states and thereby gradually break down the Confederacy. At the same time, he began his program of recruiting southern Blacks into the Union army. While some may cite the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln did stick to his guns and call it a war measure. The former plan of recruiting he could work on, the emancipation program required an actual conquest of Southern states.The danger of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation was actually fourfold. It had the potential of alienating the slave border states, the western Union states feared a slave refugee situation, it emboldened the radical secessionists to fight harder and the foreign press scoffed at the idea that although salves in the South should be free, the Union's slave states had no burden at all. This was most noted in the Fall of 1862 by the London Times.