[Non-Sequitur]

I have read all of your replies, and like the rest none of your replies have ever allowed for the fact that they may have seen that their duty lay with their country and not their state and politics be damned. You speak of honor and loyalty regarding Lee, well maybe their honor demanded the actions that they took. Not everyone holds state above country like you, but that does not make their motives suspect or their actions disreputable.

[Aurelius]

"...they may have seen that their duty lay with their country and not their state ... Not everyone holds state above country like you,..."

First, let's dispense with that familiar dishonest device of politics of confusing "country" with "nation" (as in "Ask not what your country...?). A nation is a creation and tool of the politicians, associated, but not identical with, a geographical region and its population, the country. Do we owe a duty to the nation? I don't think so, the nation exists to meet needs of the governing class and their clients, not our fellow countrymen. For this reason, as I see it, Southerners owed no duty or allegiance to the Union or to the Federal Government. In a Republic, the government is supposed to be the servant of the people. The government owes a duty to the people; the people do not owe a duty to the government. This is one point on which the founding fathers, some of them at least, had some serious confusion. They did not adequately eliminate all features of royal government in their attempt to create a republican government.