Steve
Thanks much for your gracious response! You have partly confirmed what I have been contending all along. Southern is not synonymous with Confederate (or the “Confederate experience”). Though our culture has been profoundly affected by the “lost cause”, by reconstruction and especially by the poverty that resulted, this is not what makes a Southerner a Southerner (nor is it even necessarily a question of geography, ancestry or genetics.) Being Southern is a cultural phenomenon. Southerners were different from other Americans in 1700, we were different in 1861 (much more so than now) we are still different today and by the grace of “The Old Master” we will be different 1000 years from now!

Of course you are right. In many parts of the South opinion and even military loyalty were divided. Even the “deep South” State of Alabama had 3000 white (and many more black) serving in the federal army. However at least 100,000 Alabamians (black, red and white) served in the CS army. Overall there has seldom if ever been a nation that went into war with greater unanimity than did the Southern Confederacy. It has been estimated that only about 10% of the population were “patriots” at the beginning of the 1st American Revolution. Even In our present crisis about a third of our population were against the war.