Well, you can believe it.
It wasn't called the War of Northern Aggression for nothing. Meaning, yes, the soldiers knew what the war was about - the North, with Lincoln, wanted to have Southern land owners that grew crops that provided rich tariff money - lose that land to Yankee corporate interests - and pretty much to cut out the middle man.
I know what we've been told and told, and told again. But the War, and this may be a great disappointment - was NOT about slavery. We all have learned by rote the Emancipation Proclamation - all bull**** propaganda - Lincoln was the one that didn't like non-whites.
If you believe this BS narrative - you don't know a damned thing about Lincoln, Washington, DC, the designs on Southern landowners, the tariffs from the 1840's on, nor anything about States voluntarily joining the Union, voluntarily withdrawing, and Lincoln refusing to talk to Southern leaders - ****-bent on war.
The South was outnumbered in everything - about 7:1, but they made a pretty good job of circumventing what was supposed to be a very short war. The North was largely Germanic - the South was largely Celtic.
And as a side note - one out of every three Congressional Medals of Honor awarded - to this day - went/go to Irish and Scottish blooded men.