This is getting sidetracked a long way from what the OP asked, which was a much less commonly discussed question than the rights and wrongs of the !860s Unpleasantness.

I will suggest a book that takes on a similar kind of cultural investigation, using an amazing range of materials and approaches: Klaus Theweleit's "Male Fantasies" ("Maennerphantasien" in German if you can read that). He's investigating the Freikorps, the right-wing militias that put down the Socialist and Communist insurrections of post-WW1 Germany and went on to form the nucleus of the Nazi movement, the SA in particular. His angle is mainly psychoanalytic, and sometimes out on the doolally fringe of that, but he's doing two things in common with OP's project:

- looking at how the cultural milieu of the time and the experience of war (and defeat) shaped the psyche of the men of that generation

- looking at the cultural products that reflected that psyche and appealed to it.

The range of media he looks at will surprise almost anybody. There are lots of pictures. (He also asks "how can we make sure this never happens again?" which I take to be the main motivation behind Frank's posts here).

Something like this needs a methodology. Theweleit's got one. I'm not suggesting anybody else should follow it, but it does set a coherent example.