[PeaRidge]

You must be having a good morning because you actually said one thing that is true.

No matter how you arrange the statistics, the South of the 1860's was agricultural. Practically every slave owner worked in the fields with his slave labor, while the children did the same.

This points out the absurdity of the Slave Aristocracy concept. However, you did assert the big fallacy that the South was fighting to preserve slavery. Remember, it did not have to fight, the slave states had seceded and specifically legalized slavery in these states.

The South fought to keep the armed people of Mass., RI, NY, Ohio, Pa., NH, IL., etc. off our land.

You should be asking why, if slavery was gone from the North due to secession, were these people were ordered to our soil?

[Non-Sequitur]

You do me little credit, Pea. Everything I say is true. I suppose you can provide something to back up your claim that practically every slave owner worked in the fields with their slaves, especially since a sizable number of slave owners lived in urban areas and their chattel was used as house servants and the like. There were even isolated incidents of slaves being used in factory work, but those were exceptions. I have a problem forming a mental image of Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson laboring out in the fields with the slaves.