The primary motivation to fight on the part of most Confederate soldiers was the simplest motivation of all...to defend one's home ground against an invader...and to preserve one's own society and its various customs and institutions and its sovereignty.

Populations everywhere do this instinctively in wartime...they step up to defend the home ground and the culture they have grown up in...and there's nothing the least bit unusual about them doing so.

This was also true of the vast majority of Germans who fought in WWII, the vast majority of Russians who fought in that war also, and indeed the vast majority of any soldiers everywhere in just about any war that ever happened...specially if invading armies came across their borders onto their home territory...and almost all the fighting in the US Civil War was done on southern territory, with purposes of forcing seceding states back into the Union. It is simple patriotism to one's own home that gives people the will to fight in a war.

Why would southerners NOT have fought invading Union armies? Wouldn't northerners have fought an invading Confederate Army? And for the very same reason. Northern soldiers generally fought better on home ground than on southern ground (in the very few significant battles that occurred when Lee counterattacked the north). No surprise there! People always fight harder on home ground, because it's utterly clear what they are fighting for.

Yes, the southerners' defence of the institution of slavery was wrong. No kidding! Anyone with even a grain of intelligence can figure that out now. It's a no-brainer....and you DON'T prove your great progressive moral credentials to anyone now by pointing out that slavery was a bad thing. But it was not the only reason why they were fighting. The main reason they were fighting, once the shooting started, was the same reason that anyone fights in a war...they were fighting for their own sovereignty over their own affairs, in defence of everything they knew, and for the men next to them in the line of battle...as ANY people will once a war has started. This does not make the southerners in that war bad people. Neither does it excuse the awful institution of slavery, which is a totally wrongful institution in any time or place.

We have some totally wrongful institutions now too...and people often take them for granted, just like most southerners then took slavery for granted. People have their blind spots. This does not make them "evil" people, though it may blind them to an evil consequence.

In short, Greg...you're not better than they were. Nor am I. Nor are any of us. We just have the benefit of a great deal of historical hindsight. Congratulations! Back then, if you'd been born a southerner, you'd probably have proudly enlisted under Lee's banner, and so might most of us, myself probably included. We would not have then had the benefit of the historical hindsight that we have now, and our views would most likely have already been formed by the culture all around us at the time.

And that's why I say, we're not better than them. At least, we have no business assuming that we are. If we do assume so, it's just a bunch of self-righteous posturing, in my opinion.