GUEST writes:

"Why do so many Americans refuse to consider the possibility that poor Southern white men were willing to die because they thought that they were fighting for something other than the rich folks privilages regardles of the reason that the rich folks had for starting the war?"

That is highly plausible, GUEST, as there are a lot of poor and working class whites in the South (and elsewhere) who think they're fighting for something other than rich folks privileges when they support the GOP (the Democrats during the Civil War era). Sadly, those people were and still are hoodwinked.

As noted above the Civil War was about greed and slave labor was necessary for the attainment of massive fortunes. In the long runup to the Civil War after the invention of the cotton gin the main political aims of the southern states quite obviously were the preservation of slavery. Look it up. That period of American history is fascinating.