"for dixie partisans the war was a battle for FREEDOM from a faraway government which southerners increasingly viewed as intrusive & potentially dictatorial. they wanted OUT of the union AND were willing to die to be FREE. (the soldiers,sailors & marines of the CSA saw themselves as being exactly the same as the heroes of 1776."
Therein lies the foolishness, stupidity, and delusional thinking of the secessionists that obviously still percolates in the dark, dank recesses of a few small minds over one hundred years after the fact. The colonists in 1776 chafed at taxation without representation, the southern Democrats of 1861 chafed at losing elections. There was every opportunity to negotiate, or resolve a mechanism for secession via the courts, but they choose to start a war in which they would have their asses handed to them four years later.
PITY that NOBODY is fooled by your post.
free dixie,sw