Let's set a few things straight here while we're at it. The South seceded the Union. It was not illegal to do so. This makes the CSA at the time of the start of the civil war a soveriegn state in its own right. Yes, the CSA took arms against the Union Army which invaded the CSA at Bull Run in Virginia. I'm not sure I remember who fired the first shot. But if it was the CSA troops then they were well within their rights to defend their "country". We needed less provocation than that to attack Iraq. Also there were attacks by people like John Brown that greatly angered the southerners to beigin with. Brown was not a legal representative of any governmental agency. He was an out and out vigilante bent on doing what he thought was God's Will. Sounds alot like someone else we know.

Two - Lincoln illegally arrested and held for the duration of the war, people identified as sympathizers and gave them no trial whatsoever. Kinda like we're seeing now. The state of Maryland and in paricular the city of Baltimore was placed under martial law for the duration of the war. This is understandable as the Union would hardly want the capital to be surrounded by CSA territory but it was still wrong.

Three - Throughout the war the North siezed and garrisoned troops in private homes owned by citizens of the CSA. This was one of the greatest insults as we had language forbidding this in the constitution.

Four - The destruction wrought by Sherman and his troops was not necessary and resulted in a south that was crippled for years after the war badly lagging behind in industrial development because of the destruction of the railroads and burning of the crops and farmhouses and buildings needed to harvest the next crop if they could get it to grow.

The fact that Gen. Robert E. Lee kept the troops from going guerilla at the end of the war, a situation that we now confront in Iraq shows that the CSA was not the evil demon that we have been lead to believe.

And think about this as well. The Union army was the first to deploy snipers who by many accounts were not used to take out leading officers and such but against common troops in camp far from the lines and not participating in the battle. The former I would consider a necessity of war. The latter I consider cold blooded murder. Today if an Iraqi or Al quaida or Taliban should do so it would be considered terrorism.