We lost but gave ‘em a good four year scrap. Well, that was in reality but it may have been modified or omitted for schooling recent generations. My father told me his grandfather returned from the war missing a leg. I asked what he did once he got back home. My dad said,”He sat on the porch a lot!”...duh. Guess the internet in the country was bad way back then as well....
Lee was clearly a sociopath (It takes a good sociopath to effectively send men into battle) that really, REALLY blew it at Gettysburg. Multiple mistakes were made.
All that said, I side with the south’s states rights sentiment, but I’m glad the union was preserved. It would be a very different continent and world had the south succeeded. We’d be like France and Germany. And come 1940 that could have been ugly.