“In Northren Virginia where I was raised in the 50’s and 60’s there were people there who had survived ‘The War’ as they called who told us little ones stories about the depredations that they endured at hands of the invaders.”
The Yankees were far from benevolent occupiers. The tyranny and oppression they wielded over Southern civilians was unconscionable. Many folks (especially from north of the Mason-Dixon line and the granola republics of the West Coast) are ignorant of the fact that it was the Yankees who invaded the South, and that was what really started the War for Southern Independence: The South just wanted to be left alone to forge its own destiny, but that tyrant Lincoln had other ideas. Secession itself is not a martial or warlike act; invasion, though, most certainly is.
Wrong, it was southern traitors who fired on AMERICAN SOLDIERS at Fort Sumter.