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“You continue pedantic non-sequiturs.
You discuss events that started well after the start of the Civil War. I’m discussing the spark that started the Civil War.
You spend paragraphs berating me. ...”[ctdonath, post 131]

Repeating what you have apparently decided is an epithet doesn’t tell us anything about its factual accuracy. And tells us still less about the issues under examination.

So - pointing out a factual error is a personal attack now? I thought self-named conservatives were more mature, possessed of more experience and judgment, and less thin-skinned.

It’s OK. I’ve been chewed out by some pretty high rankers. Some were borderline psychopaths; how they managed to rise so high did nothing to increase my confidence in the military promotion system.

The “spark” that marks the end of “peace” and the beginning of hostilities doesn’t mean as much as many citizens think: we tend to assume that if that single event had not happened, peace would have rolled on undisturbed, therefore the sparkers were a coterie of evildoers in need of disrespect and vilification.

Doesn’t reflect the real world, where two (or more) parties that enter into conflict are motivated by factors that build up tension for decades.

I confess to little sympathy for either side in the American Civil War. The culture and mindset celebrated by the Confederacy means nothing to me, but I cannot abide the bluenoses who appointed themselves the arbiters of morals and infected the Union with a sense of self-righteousness it had no business assuming. Both sides were looking for an excuse; the combative rhetoric, the election of Abraham Lincoln, the seizure of military facilities and supplies under Federal control were several.

Both sides overestimated their own capabilities to bend the outcome their way. Neither foresaw the mess they were getting into: especially not its drawn-out nature.