Watkins didn't start the war, his rebel leadership did. They were motivated by what they saw as a need to defend their institution of slavery.
Watkins believed in the principle of states' rights."
State's right to do what?
Watkins' account of the travails of a Confederate foot soldier is vivid, memorable and unpretentious.
I know, I read it.
To leave! It's not so much slavery or any other reason, southern people just don't like central authority telling them what to do. It's a trust thing. It's DNA. Virginians can sometimes be the most stubborn people I have ever come across.
In a war the solders fight, the leaders hold the leash. The fight is in the dog, not in the dog's leash. The good leader controls the leash so that it neither adds or detracts from the dogs desire, but gets the fullest out of them. Sam was a good soldier until Atlanta, helplessly watching that pillaging thing took a lot of the fight out of him, so Sherman was right? Might makes right? Who knows?