Yes, he was a Southern hero. And, yes, he was an honorable man who did what he thought was right when in the middle of conflicting loyalties.
He choose to defend a treasonous cause bent on maintaining an economic system based on the use of slave labor. He and Davis should have read the hand writing on the wall after the defeat of Lee's army at Gettysburg and realized the war was lost but instead, largely at Davis's insistence they continued the war for two more years adding to the suffering of all Southerners and it's eventual ruination.
Hero my foot. If it weren't in the interest of political expediency and the fact that Lincoln didn't want to stir any more Southern sympathy for the remnant Confederacy both Lee and Davis would have been hung.