I disagree with the author's assertion that "Confederates laid down their arms, some picked up their pens and began to distort what they had done and why." While a number of Confederate generals and leaders wrote memoirs after the war. Very few defended the Southern reasons for war, most simply wrote about their experiences. Keep in mind that this was the period of the Reconstruction... for the most part little attention was paid to the reasons for the war. Most people were just trying to move on from it, and most former leaders in the South were trying to NOT defend the Southern perspective in order to get jobs at Universities, etc. (keep in mind that hiring had to be approved by Reconstructionists).
The "writing" (or re-writing) of Southern history was done in the period of 1890 to 1940, most of the writing was done by Southerners who never served in the war. This was the period where many authors fondly brought up states rights and Southern heritage.
Portions of the article outline that many border states had many more people supporting the Union than the Confederacy - no reasonable person who follows history ever disputed this. Most of western North Carolina fought for the Union. This might be a good time to mention that even deep Northern states such as New York had thousands of who fought for the South. The South also had many blacks in their armed forces who were paid pensions after the war (as evidenced by the pension records). The population loyalty scenarios were very confused, state lines meant little - the period included many families with divided loyalties.
The article tried to portray that the war was solely about slavery, it was not . There was a host of causes and the entire situation was complex. The re-writing of history by Southern advocates was mostly done after 1900. Most of the statues to Southern veterans were put up post-1900 as well as the naming of military bases - as noted in the article the statue in Maryland was put up in 1913.
The author's assertions that veterans of the Civil War laid down their arms and proceeded to re-write history is unfair to these veterans. His partial quoting of the document of Texas secession fails to present the rest of the reasons put forward by Texas. His twisting of "states rights" reasoning around the fugitive slave law is hollow and does not hold water in light of the very eloquent states rights presentations by Southerns in the U.S. Congress prior the war. I certainly agree that the Southern states did not only cede for "state rights" - they ceded to defend slavery and host of other reasons.
Furthermore I certainly agree with the last sentence in the article "Across the country, removing slavery from its central role in prompting the Civil War marginalizes African Americans and makes us all stupid."
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