I have always been pro Southern but in the last few years have come to believe the war between the states was what ultimately resulted in the mess we are in now.
It was basically the decision of whether we would have A strong and eventually all powerful central government or one in which power was decentralized.
I also for the first time a few years ago came across some old newspaper stories still housed in sn old courthouse in Georgia.
I was researching one of my ancestors who came from SE Georgia and came across newspaper archives with many stories of the brutality towards civilians by the Union Army in the post-war time period.
Black troops were quite literally murdering, raping, burning houses,etc. pretty much at will. Local people literally begged the Union Army General in charge to replace them. For some time, he refused but eventually did replace them.
I don’t know this to be true but suspect that general had pressure from above to keep those Black troops in charge.
In Falls Church, VA, the union army occupied the town. Then, they literally ripped Geo. Washington’s pew out of the church, and used the chapel as a stable.
The Church is “The Church at the Falls”, or, more commonly, “The Falls Church.”
Always seemed a metaphore for the civil war to me.