"Most soldiers in most wars, if they're not completely mercenaries or slaves, go to war for home and family and native land and an idea of freedom"
Well. thank you very much for backing off of all the absolutist nonsense that has been present on this thread. Very refreshing. Going back in time, prior to an omnipresent media shaping perceptions, the hows and the whys might not have been clear until well after the fact. Or, never, if there's enough political hay to be made, as is the case with the so-called "Civil War" in the US. It's too rich of a lode of loaded symbolism for leftists in particular to ever, ever let it go.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that the war occured because of local patriotism or family feeling. A lot of the confusion here is because some people are talking about objective causes and others are talking about individual honor or virtue.