My real concern is with the higher levels in the military and the government. They can make anything look good and right on paper. We grew up playing cowboys and Indians. We knew some of the real, not Hollywood version, tales of events and didn't question them. We were children but the adults didn't seem too concerned on the 'rightness of them' either. Then as I grew up more interested in History than most anything else, I started to see some patterns. Some things that weren't fitting into the mold I had believed all American's were formed in. I guess I started to see the greed, the selective fight picking and the segregation of more than just one race. It was not something I wanted to see. There is a 'war' history with every classification of the human race. Some justified, it really depends on what side of the field one is on. Maybe some lessons were learned though. Now, there is a more 'humane' approach to the fighting but it also hinders the purpose.
I admit I am biased on the WBTS because I don't have any who were with the Union (that I know of) but I also just do not see my ancestors who did join the CS Army as doing so to preserve a way of life they were not living. Only one, and maybe another( from the Georgia line I'm working on now) owned a few slaves. The one I have found owning them is the Cherokee. It was not a new 'institution' for the Indians at all. Those in my family who fought in the Revolutionary War had the most slaves. We all know that little factiod on the widespread use of slaves in that time period has been ignored by those who wish to demonize the Southern cause.
Mankind is the most evil of all the 'creatures' in Gods creation. Sometimes having a larger brain and a thumb does not make a catagory in the food chain chart all that smart after all. Some come up with new ways to inflict pain on others because they can.
Pam