Your interpretation of History may be different than others, by the way. That which you BELIEVE to be accurate, is based on someone's research and/or statements, as is ALL History (unless one were present).I don't believe you were present during the Civil War, and your "facts" are those recorded or "produced" by someone else. That's true of all History....it's passed on and filtered.
So what you’re saying is “everything is relative”? How progressive a thinker you must be!
We have massive amounts of facts about the WBTS, most of them unchallenged. But a bunch of facts,even when compiled, do not constitute History.
History is important facts about the past, assembled and explained in such a way as to show what they mean.
Which facts you consider important and what they mean are be definition matters of opinion. Which does not mean that some opinions are not better than others.
Accurate history should include discussion of why certain facts were included rather than others, and why the historian reached his conclusion as to what those facts mean.
Unfortunately, this seldom happens. The writing of most "histories" starts off with the historian having a more or less fixed view of the Meaning of the period, then selecting the Facts that will support that view. Which is of course, IMO quite backwards.
We should try to understand the past for what it may be able to teach us about the present and future. When we manipulate the story of the past to try to impose our view of what the present and future should be, we defeat the purpose of history. Many of the posts on these Civil War threads illustrate this point perfectly.