Yes I know, I had a great great grandfather who fought for the south,he died long after of a smoldering infection from a wound. I still think the whole thing including slavery was wrong wrong wrong.
I had kin on the Confederate side(one of them was killed at Kennesaw Mountain defending my home state from Sherman)and I too say that slavery was wrong, wrong, wrong. I had at least one kin on the Union side(an East Tennessee Unionist at that)but nevertheless ever since Lincoln’s war the government has grown bigger and meaner. The more I read about the Late Unpleasantness of 1861-1865,the more it seems to me that to say that the war was about any one thing
is too simplistic, whether it be slavery or states’ rights.But if you could have asked the average soldier of either side why they were fighting, you’d probably get simple reasons. The average Confederate would probably say he was defending his home from an invading army. The average Northerner would probably say he was fighting to preserve the Union. Funny thing—when you bring folks together at the point of a bayonet,you have union all right,but not necessarily unity. It took a while after the war for unity to be a reality.