I am not one but I am the first in my family since 1776 and before to live in one of the States of the Rebellion. My wife’s history major was practically The Civil War and she has written long papers and can talk quite a while on it and for every thing I can come up with that is “new” to me she can jump in a take off with footnotes and references. SHE can’t give a satisfactory answer on why that war took place. I doubt any of the folks who survived could. Come to think of it I doubt any soldier in any war has really understood anywhere near fully just why they are there. Slavery was the moral motivator that got the Union soldiers to fight, no question. How important was it? Lincoln himself said that if it preserved the Union he would not free a single slave so it must not have been all that important, at least to him.
Why? I don’t think anyone knows. There were many reasons and none good but together they must have been enough because it pretty much undeniably happened. The home in which I sit is surrounded with trenches and excavations that stand as mute testament to the fact that there was, indeed, a war around here.
Many Union soldiers said if the war was to free the blacks they would have never volunteered. Of course everyone one was a conscript by 1863 and the EP.
So there are a lot of questions regarding that.