I greatly disagree with slavery. Sadly, until the industrial revolution, something you probably can't fathom, it has been a part of human society going back to the earliest days of written history. It continued in the north long after the Civil War under more friendly names.

Slavery was a major driving force of the US Civil War but it is childish to claim it was not just a tool in the box of the economic warfare leading to a shooting war between the north east and south east.

Further, it is incredibly childish to view the entirety of these men's contributions to the United States and United State Military as if the only contributions are the actions during the four year war.

You clearly have no problem with Lincoln decorating our currency, Rushmore, the Lincoln Monument, et. al. even though he was an unabashed racist who would have preferred to deport all non-whites according to his own writings.

Lee is still considered by our wisest military teachers to be the most effective battlefield general in the history of the country. His views, like the vast majority of the North and South during and after the war on slavery were changing and did change with time.

This is the problem with people like you, your collectivist leaning (clear via your username) means you must ignore the individual and instead group everyone - meaning that you must lose all nuance or context - instead you must be sure to place the proper label on everyone with a small amount of information and dig no further.

The fact that my pointing out your simplistic view of the events that led us to war implied to you that I support slavery speaks fucking volumes.