Thanks for a fantastic link, I love Shelby Foote.
He’s one of those people, you don’t care what he says, just love the way he says it.
In this case I agree with most of his argument, but would still ask: when Confederate armies invaded Union states, which they did numerous times, how did your average Confederate or Union soldier’s views of things change?
Also, his suggestion that average Confederate troops didn’t give a d#mn about slavery may or may not be true, however, it’s certain beyond dispute that all Confederate officers and political leaders cared deeply about slavery, and would not give it up short of unconditional surrender.
I'm confident that that is true. The movers and shakers in those states were the planters who owned huge plantations. They were threatened by Lincoln and the prospect that they might lose what they believed was their "right" to own people. If you believe what they wrote in their declarations of "secession," they truly believed that they could not go on without having slaves do their work for them. It may sound crazy now, but it certainly wasn't crazy to them.
Unfortunately, that group of people was calling calling the shots back then. They had the power, the money and the influence to declare these "secessions." The interests of most ordinary people were ignored.
It is tragic that they put the whole country through all that transpired in an effort to preserve what the tides of history were destined to destroy.
You've brought this up before, and I simply don't understand why you think this is significant. After being invaded, returning the favor is a perfectly reasonable, and possibly militarily sensible thing to do.
Sometimes a good offense is the best defense.