I read this today while in the doctors office and it makes sense.
It was the april 2011 issue of time magazine. in it I learned that the war really started in 1856 in kansas and everything leading up to fort sumter was indeed all about slavery.
it also told how the southern historians and military folks who wrote their books after the war naturally imbellished them to show the rebels in their best light. I realize that the author of the article may have been a true blue yankee but when you learn how many people were murdered over slavery all those years it makes you wonder. even a US rep. killed an abolitionist.
then there was all that land out west....