I recently finished an extensive college course on the civil war offered by the teaching company.  A few things that I didn’t realize (or forgot from my school days):

the vote to succeed was close in many confederate states at least closer than I thought…in fact, I didn’t even realize there was a vote.

It was ALL about slavery.

2 key players who exhibited high EQ Emotional Quotient): Lincoln–Throughout his life, he showed incredible EQ, and it was exhibited with, at times controversial, full pardons for the confederates.  Longstreet–While many of his confederate General peers remained loyal to the confederate causes and looked down upon him as a turn coat, he went on to join the Northern political party of the time period: Republicans, remained politically active, moves on with his life to assimilate with the United States.

Finally, I am once again struck by origin sin.  An ancient Christian principle that points to all of us having some inherent sin (lit. missing the mark) nature.  This ubiquitous finding is seen over and over again, and it is especially prominent in any conflict–especially the Civil War.