Remember how growing up all you heard in school was how every single Union soldier and person living up north absolutely *loved* the slaves? The Civil War pill for me was in college. Had a professor who used some of the Socratic Method to break down the "evil" of slavery in the South. What sealed it for me was examining most slaves living conditions. I'm obviously paraphrasing this, but this was what I can remember from that lecture: "We're taught that slaves lived in crude buildings and shacks and had dirt floors and ate soul food. They didn't get the "good" food that the Master did. So how is living in a crude building with dirt floor different from 90% of the rest of the population in the country at that time? Did *everyone* live how they did at the Tara Plantation from *Gone With The Wind*? The answer is No, everybody in the South didn't live like that during slavery. People lived in crude outbuildings, huts and other shacks in the North just as much as slaves did in the South. " "We watch Roots, Amistad and other Hollywood movies about slavery and believe that every single instance of slavery was purely barbaric and animalistic. Not the case. Think about it: if a slave was an expensive investment, wouldn't you want your slaves to be in good shape, decently fed and at least somewhat taken care of so they can produce better results for you? Why would you beat, whip and kill your slaves every day as these sensationalist movies suggest? It would be like a Farmer putting sand in the exhaust pipe of his tractor every day to sabotage the engine. What sense would that make?"