“By the third year of the war, those troops, especially those in the Army of Northern Virginia, were not fighting for slavery, far from it. By that point, nobody was thinking much about ‘The Cause’ at all, they were fighting for their brothers - literally, and their neighbors - again literally, because of the unusual nature of the war itself.”
I understand your point that by the end of the war a few conferdate soldiers may have thought they were fighting for their brothers, But what other reason than slavery did the south cecede for?
‘But what other reason than slavery did the south cecede for?’
Virginia left the Union primarily because ‘she’ knew the war would be fought there, in large part. It was questionable if Virginia would vote to follow the first five states right up til the moment Lincoln called for an army of 75,000 troops to ‘quash the rebellion’. The only way that army could have done so was by marching through Virginia.
Just one example that comes to mind.
As you might know, there was always a very real tension between the States Rights crowd, and the Strong Central Government types. It began festering about ten minutes after Cornwallis surrendered in the Revolutionary War, from what you read of the era. And its still going on today, as we see ‘unfunded mandates’ from DC forced upon various states, for varying reasons.
The Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union might be of some help.