My favorite way of pointing out the nuances of the Civil War it to note that for each side, the primary issue was the opposite of what the latter-day partisans of the two sides say it was. For the South the issue was slavery, and the Confederacy was formed to defend that institution. For the North the issue was states rights, the Union going to war to vindicate the position that states do no have the right to secede uniliaterally.
@The_Reader_David Yeah,but,no. Not even close. It was about MONEY.
The entire southern economy at that time was based on agriculture,and farming was entirely dependent on manual labor. If you wanted to expand your farm much beyond the bare substance level,you either had to pump out a LOT of kids really quickly,or hire farm laborers.
There was no such thing as farm laborers to hire back then. People back then,just like people of today,needed jobs that were daily jobs,not seasonal jobs.
The answer,was slaves. Nobody in the south captured and enslaved anyone,with ONE exception. That exception was a black man named Johnson who came to America like every other immigrant at that time who didn't have a title and wasn't in the military. He came here as an indentured servant,and once he worked off the expense of his passage,food,shelter,housing,as a laborer,he became a free man and was given acreage to create a farm.
He "hired" another indentured servant to help him by paying his passage to America,and when the man he hired (also a black man) had worked his time out,Johnson went to court to prevent him from being freed. He won the court battle,and slavery became legal in the original colony of Virginia. Which meant it became legal everywhere in America at that time.
Anyhow,the entire economy of the south revolved around slave labor at that time.
Guess who else profited from slavery. Can you say "Northern Bankers"? ALL of whom were based in NYC. Still are,AFATG.
THEY profited because they not only lent money to the plantation owners to buy seeds,tools,SLAVES,etc,etc,etc,
they also brokered all the foreign sales of tobacco,corn,and the other crops the southern plantation owners sold internationally. This was because all the banking houses at that time were owned by European banking families with financial ties to Royalty,and let's not forget this started prior to 1607. These were the same banking families that lent the English the money to come to America and create the original colony on Roanoke Island in what is now called "The Outer Banks of NC".
200 years later the southern agricultural economy is a booming established business,and pretty much have a lock on the sale of some items to Europe,like corn and tobacco.
So the wealthy southern planters decide to cut out the middleman and sell directly to European brokers,bypassing NYC.
Which,as you may have guessed,caused the NYC bankers to start having spasms.
Yes,there WERE other factors involved,including opposition to slavery on moral grounds by people who could afford to be moral because it wasn't THEIR horse that was being gored,but it really boils down to the rich European banking families based in NYC didn't like having their fingers snatched out of the pie,and the rich plantation owners in the south (who mostly owned the local banks,also) didn't like having to pay a ransom to the NYC bankers when they now had the money and the means to do their own shipping and financing.
And,as always,everyone else got pulled into the squabble over greed and money,and we went to war. The Northern politicians tried one thing and then another,but nothing worked until they decided to cloak their aggression in religious terms,and declared slavery to be immoral. They then demanded the south outlaw slavery,knowing full-well that if they did so,their banks would fail and so would their economy.
The southern bankers resisted because they would be the ones that the most if slavery became illegal at that time. Don't forget,at that time it was ALL stoop labor. No machines. A few years later the Cotton Gin was invented,and THAT was the death knoll for slavery even if there had been no Civil War.
The northern foot soldiers were mostly ignorant,but sincere religious people who volunteered for moral reasons.
Since there weren't enough of them,the north started the first draft,which led to draft riots in NYC,with lots of black people being killed in the riots. So the north solved this little "lack of volunteers" problem by basically making enlisting in the army a requirement for new refugees at Elis Island hoping to find new homes in America. They either "volunteered" or reasons were found to reject them,and put them on boats back to Europe,losing everything they sacrificed to come here in the first place.
The typical rebel foot solider volunteered because they were Scots-Irish,and somebody told them there were Englishmen coming into the south that needed killing.
It ain't pretty,but history never is.