I met a good amount of German vets when I was stationed over there and they had that same toughness that our guys had. It seems that the tough guys left in America are the over 45 crowd. The CSA had some of the greatest fighting spirit of any army ever fielded.
I would tend to agree with you there.
But one thing still stands out about the Union Army: in spite of years of inept and downright stupid commanders, battles lost and regiments destroyed by the poor quality of Union military leadership, those same soldiers kept coming back, year after year, battle after battle. That, in and of itself, is most impressive. It's easy to have high morale and an upbeat fighting spirit when you're winning all of the time, as the CSA did for most of the first two years of the war. It's wholly another to be beaten like a rented mule on a regular recurring basis and keep coming back.