I’ve grown up under the Southern myth of the “War of Northern Aggression”: Honorable gentlemen fought valiantly against overwhelming odds and lost to brutes who invaded their land and left it charred and bloody. Southern armies were led by virtuous leaders such as Stonewall Jackson, who avoided fighting on Sunday, and Robert E. Lee, who set a record for the fewest demerits by any West Point graduate. Lee’s opponent, Ulysses S. Grant, set a record for the most demerits, and spent much of the war drunk.
