This rubbish of social justice warriors wanting to deface and destroy Confederate monuments and symbols enrages me.
The Civil War was one of the most transformative and significant events in this country. The men who fought, suffered, and died for the Confederacy fought tenaciously and bravely, and they were our brothers, our countrymen.
What those men did, and the memory of it, is as important to who we became as a country as any other single thing.
I always thought Ulysees S. Grant put it best for me:
“I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”
Point is, most of those men in the Confederacy, when asked why they were fighting, instead of citing the institution of slavery, would likely have said "Because you're here" or something along those lines.
yes
best wishes