Roughly 2% were draftees, most of the Union army were volunteers.
That doesn't make the American Civil War a slave revolt though. It just feels like Atun-Shei is trying to remain to his shtick even if a lot of the things he says are complete nonsense.
Probably why I loathe him so much aside from being a homosexual theater kid. Probably the kid of person who believes in infinite positive freedom while disregarding negative Freedom
If the rank and file of the Union army were told they were fighting to free blacks the Union would not have been able to field an army.
Only about 5% were drafted, but that's in large part because somewhere between 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 of Union soldiers were Irish and German immigrants.
The perspective of the Confederates was that the war was about independence from an aggressive power. You can litigate the reasons for secession - and slavery and fears of abolitionism were absolutely a significant reason - but given the initial half of the CSA coexisted with the US for half a year, the war was obviously separate and not inevitable, especially as the other half of the CSA only seceded following Proclamation 80.
The Union was very much opposed to slavery, regardless of if they were anti-slavery or abolitionist. The main group that was quite opposed to abolitionism as a whole in the Union were the Irish. While the sentiment of the soldiery was apathetic to slavery in general, as the war progressed and the cruelty of slavery became apparent the sentiment shifted to abolitionism.
I read it was the germans.
From what I have seen for every South will rise again there is atleast 10 Atun-Shei types seething about Confederacy 24/7.
The last states to abolish slavery were in the Union. There was a dedicated abolitionist lobby in the Union, but it was not an issue most people cared strongly about and political moderates - including Lincoln - were more than happy to compromise on everything from enforcing emancipation to abolitionism itself if it helped the war effort.
Lincoln legally speaking couldn't ban slavery in already existing states. Which is why the Emancipation Proclamation was for slaves in the Confederacy since in the eyes of the government, rebelling states were essentially fair game.
The point was not of legality, but of priority; the war was not waged as some moral crusade against slavery, and only became one in recent historiography. Congress did not take the opportunity to force through an anti-slavery amendment or legislation even after the strongest opponents to it left in 1860, as most of the northern politicians were more interested in territorial integrity, so much so that even as late the Hampton Roads Conference compromising on slavery was still being floated. Mollifying the many slave states that remained in the Union was important enough that on multiple occasions Lincoln would countermand the orders of generals who took it on themselves to free slaves in border states, to the point where he even sacked John C. Fremont, while the Emancipation Proclamation was issued only about halfway into the war for as a political stunt.
This ignores the fact that the abolition of slavery in Brazil was a very top-down initiative passed by Dom Pedro II and his daughter Princess Isabel. The leading figures in the coup against the monarchy were all either former slave owners or aligned with the slave lobby in Brazil and the abolition was the final thing to push them over the edge in overthrowing the monarchy.
Foncesca, Barbosa and Peixoto were all outspoken supporters of abolition, and the slaveowners were belittled as 'Republicans of May 13' because they only jumped ship last minute following abolition without any recompense. Them abandoning the monarchy was crucial to its peaceful abolition but the main push had come from progressives in the military who probably would have still tried to force Isabella into exile once Pedro died even if the monarchy hadn't alienated its strongest base of support.
Pedro II was never a particularly good monarch either. He ranks pretty low in my estimates of 19th century monarchs, including Franz Josef I once you look at his actual track record. Amazing how many monarchies entered a freefall collapse because they ended up headed by doddering old men in the 19th century.
Africa never being colonized just to see how the End of History types try to resolve their worldview with even more intense tribal warfare and conflict. Also because it would be interesting to see what states would have formed in Africa with minimal European influence and what the regional powers would be.
Not super big into alt-history, but Cold War-gone-hot would be my favorite counterfactual scenario. A conventional conflict in the '80s is probably the most common scenario, the most fun, and the most "fair." Though I'd also say it's the most unlikely politically; most media tends to be really reaching for a reason for it to happen, or just ignores the question entirely.