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Speaking of Confederate troops:

“I know that this country without slave labor would be wholly worthless, a barren waste and desolate plain— We can only live & exist by this species of labor; and hence I am willing to continue the fight to the last.”

Captain William Nugent, writing to his wife from headquarters, 28th Mississippi Cavalry, Tupelo Mississippi on September 7, 1863

I am with the South in life or death, in victory or defeat. I believe the North is about to wage a brutal and unholy war on a people who have done them no wrong, in violation of the Constitution and the fundamental principles of government. They no longer acknowledge that all government derives its validity from the consent of the governed. They are about to invade our peaceful homes, destroy our property, and murder our men and dishonor our women. We propose no invasion of the North, no attack on them, and only ask to be left alone.

Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.

It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.

Gen. Patrick Cleburne - CSA

Captain William Nugent, writing to his wife from headquarters, 28th Mississippi Cavalry, Tupelo Mississippi on September 7, 1863

I have long argued that those attempting to justify the war go to great efforts to cherry pick their "evidence."

According to these people, every soldier in the Union army wrote letters to back home telling their families that they joined the Union army for the sole purpose of eradicating slavery!

That is not at all the truth, but that is the sort of fact manipulation Liberals have done for centuries. They went to great efforts to collect examples of such letters, and then they try to create the illusion that this was the dominant thought in the ranks. They left out the many thousands of letters from Union soldiers that would show those fighting to eradicate slavery are a teeny tiny minority of kooks in the larger ranks.

This is form of "astroturf."

And now you are doing the flip side of that with your searching for letters from Confederates that also show what you want to believe, and ignoring the vast majority of other letters which do not show this at all.

We are long aware of how this game is played, and it does not impress us when you attempt to deceive us by cherry picking out only examples that support what you wish to believe.