No man has a right to unjustly take the life and property of an innocent other, and especially not in the complete absence of a due process of law.
Tell, who do you consider a paragon of virtue in the American Civil War period?
War produces precious few of those. The one that comes closest out of the major figures is Jackson. When all are considered, the title of virtue belongs to the common soldier who fired in defense of his home and family, and there were thousands of those.
I have never faulted the simple soldier who followed orders.
That's what you don't understand, capitan. It's not even a matter of following orders - it's a matter of self defense, self preservation, and ultimately survival. If a yankee comes charging into my state, across my farm, through my house, and at my family I'm going to fire back at him regardless of whether I have orders from some distant government in Richmond or anywhere else. And if that government in Richmond is doing something that permits me to be more effective in defending myself, then yes - I would band with them. But that no more makes me a pawn of theirs than your farcical claims of "might makes right" and "ends justify the means" excuse the tangible and certain offenses against humanity and God committed by Abe and his wantonly destructive henchmen.
The "overwhelming majority" of southerners did not participate militarily for the South in the war, if you include the Unionists of the border slave-states, in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, in Louisiana.
Unsubstantiated garbage. Outside of Eastern Tennessee and the Wheeling region of Virginia (which wasn't really southern to begin with - it's north of the mason dixon line) the number of union troops from the south is virtually non-existant. Save for those two states, they numbered a couple thousand on average and in some cases a couple dozen. South Carolina sent zero recorded union troops for example. Mississippi sent 500, Georgia is unknown but estimated at less than a hundred, and the rest sent a couple thousand each.
There are a lot of modifiers in that sentence.
Let me simplify. In war, you have the right to kick the crap out of the enemy and to utterly destroy his war-making capacity. Presumably that does not include killing civilians and innocents. It does include taking or obliterating anything that adds to the enemy's war machine, including food and animal stock. If that leaves the civilian population destitute, that's too bad. It is up to their own forces to care for them - or capitulate. There is no "due process", because war is not a legal process.
When guerrilla warfare occurs, the number of civilian casualties necessarily increases.
"The one that comes closest out of the major figures is [Stonewall] Jackson."
Interesting that you would mention Thomas Jackson. Jackson was an early proponent of fighting a "psychological" war - one designed to break the will of the enemy. (See Bevin Alexander, How Great Generals Win, chapter: "Stonewall Jackson")
"Outside of Eastern Tennessee and the Wheeling region of Virginia (which wasn't really southern to begin with - it's north of the mason dixon line) the number of union troops from the south is virtually non-existant."
I did not say providing troops for the Union. I said "participate militarily." There were a great many southerners in the areas I listed who "sat out" the war.