Surely you realize that Stowe had never even BEEN South and wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" from so-called accounts by abolitionists. You misunderstand my meaning here. I am not saying things were perfect, they weren't. But there were people in higher places, like Robert E. Lee, that abhored slavery, and there were plantation owners like my ancestor, who hated it as well. It might have taken 20 years, but eventually slavery would have died of natural causes. Anything would have been better than the death of 600,000 men. I do not romanticize anything here, I am simply pointing out that Lincoln had an agenda. The South was a hindrance to that agenda. If not Ft. Sumter, he would have found a different excuse. I myself have done quite a lot of research, and that is how I came to my conclusions concerning Lincoln.
To say that Robert Lee 'abhorred' slavery is quite an exaggeration.