[BroJoeK]

Vigilanteman: "The Civil War was more complicated. Yes, the south started things by firing on Ft. Sumter.
A measured response would've been a sea blockade or dispatching a marine contingent to retake the fort; not a full scale land invasion of Virginia, which hadn't even joined the CSA until it became clear that they were the main target of the full scale invasion."

FRiend, I don't blame you, I blame our woeful education system for it's failures to teach even basic facts of history.
In this particular case "a measured response" is precisely what Lincoln first proposed after Fort Sumter, on April 15, 1861:

"...the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to re-possess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event, the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country."

On April 19, Lincoln called for a blockade of Confederate ports.
The Confederacy responded by:

1. Seizing the Norfolk, Virginia, Navy Yard on April 21, over a month before Virginia voters formally ratified their state's secession and joining the Confederacy.

2. Seizing US Army arsenal in Fayetteville, and Forts Macon, Caswell and Johnson, NC, over a month before North Carolina voted to secede.

3. Seizing US Army stores at Pine Bluff and Fort Smith, Arkansas, nearly three weeks before Arkansas voted to secede.

4. Seizing the US arsenals at Liberty & Kansas City, Missouri, a state which never did vote to secede, and then sending military supplies to support Confederates in Missouri.

5. Seizing a US Coast Guard cutter in Texas, and treating captured US Army officers in Texas as Prisoners of War.

6. Repudiating all debts owed to northerners by Georgians.

7. On April 29, 1861, granting war powers to Jefferson Davis,
   on May 6 formally declaring war on the United States,
   on May 9 authorizing 400,000 3-year Confederate troops and
   on May 10 requesting six Confederate warships be purchased abroad.

All of this happened before a single Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force, or before any Union force "invaded" a single Confederate state.
Indeed, the first Union "invasion" didn't happen until after Virginians voted to secede, and join the Confederacy's formally declared war on the United States.
The first actual battle deaths came on June 10, 1861.

Vigilanteman: "Yeah, the burning of Chambersburg was a nasty affair, but it in no way even compared to the scale of what Sherman's army did to Georgia."

But, it happened before Sherman's "March to the Sea", and it was not the Confederates' only atrocity against civilians.
The fact is, in general, Confederates did more damage to civilians than Union troops, for the very simple reason that Confederate supplies were much less reliable, and therefore, they had to "live off the land" much more.
By contrast, Union troops normally received plentiful supplies from nearby railheads.
The exception of Sherman's "march to the sea" is especially notable precisely because it was such an exception.

Vigilanteman: "...the relatively benign invasion of Pennsylvania by Lee's army in the month prior to Gettysburg."

Yeh, right...
People often forget that one major reason Lee lost at Gettysburg was: his "eyes and ears", JEB Stuart's cavalry, were out gallivanting across Maryland and Pennsylvania, scarfing up all the food, horses and wagon-loads of other supplies they could carry.
So Stuart wasn't there to help Lee figure out where the Union Army was moving, resulting in some poor decisions by Lee.
However "relatively benign" you may think that, the fact is Stuart considered those supplies essential, and his pursuit of them cost Lee the battle, and arguably, the Confederacy the war.

Vigilanteman: "...we still have a compare and contrast to what course invading armies took when they HAD the ability to visit massive destruction on the locals: Lee's army in Maryland..."

Of course, you make the wrong comparisons.
The correct comparison to Sherman in Georgia, November 1864, is not Lee in Maryland, 1862, but rather Jubal Early's burning of Chambersburg in July 1864.

The correct comparison to "Beast" Butler in 1862-63 Louisiana/Mississippi is not Lee at Gettysburg in 1863, but rather the Bee Creek Massacre of December 1861, and Champ Ferguson in Eastern Tennessee, all through 1861 to 1864, including the Saltville Massacre in Virginia, October 1864.

In short: sure, you can always make a case by choosing the "best of Confederates" compared to the "worst of Unionists", but if you compare apples-to-apples, the truth of the matter is that they come out about the same.

And let us, please, give credit where it is due: by comparison to almost any other armies in civil or other wars throughout the history of mankind, our ancestors on both sides were veritable models of "Christian soldiers", and deserve to be recognized as such.

[Vigilanteman]

Nice summary. And although I have a problem with your comparing the depradations of Union high commanders like Sherman and Butler to lower ranking C.S.A. commanders like Early and Stuart rather than their true counterparts like Robert E. Lee, I can certainly agree on your final statement:

. . . by comparison to almost any other armies in civil or other wars throughout the history of mankind, our ancestors on both sides were veritable models of "Christian soldiers", and deserve to be recognized as such.

Amen to that. If you want to study a real nasty civil war, the one going on now in Syria or the Thirty Years War in Europe would prove just how true that statement is.

[Sherman Logan]

And let us, please, give credit where it is due: by comparison to almost any other armies in civil or other wars throughout the history of mankind, our ancestors on both sides were veritable models of "Christian soldiers", and deserve to be recognized as such.

In almost every civil war in history, the civilian casualties were a significant multiple of the military casualties. And the winners after the war took massive vengeance by executions and confiscation of the property of the losers.

Uniquely, AFAIK, our Civil War had civilian deaths that were probably <50k and almost certainly <100k. Perhaps 10% to 20% of military deaths.

Exactly one CSA soldier was executed by the Union after the war for war crimes.

There was a truly massive confiscation of wealth when the slaves were freed, with the resultant loss of capital throwing the South into many decades of poverty. But confiscation of other types of property was little if any.

Let's recognize the virtues of our ancestors. Mine fought on both sides, with at least one fighting first for the CSA then for USA.