@Huju
Most white southerners did not own slaves. The average soldier in the Civil War was supporting his state. This was on both sides. The idea of fighting for the country really evolved much later. Soldiers didn’t join up to the US Army or the CSA Army, they joined units such as the 1st Illinois or Lee’s Army of Virginia.
The statues erected in the late 19th and early 20th Century south were rallying spots for those practicing discrimination, much of it legal. Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal) was the law of the land until the 1950s and Brown v. Board of Education, These statues were not rallying points for slavery which was no longer legal.
I don’t agree that a statue on a town green commemorating local boys/men who answered the call and fought for their state and country is a bad thing. This is quite different than statues of Generals on horseback used to foster ill feeling towards African-Americans and other minorities.
I live in a town settled in the 1600s. On Memorial Day American Flags are placed on the graves of deceased service men and women. We don’t skip those who served in the local militia under a Royal Governor before the Revolutionary War.
There is no reason to erase history, better to use it as a teaching tool.
Remember, here in the north, we call it the Civil War. Some in assorted places call it the War Between the States (which reinforces my point about soldiers joining up to support a state, not a country), BUT in parts of the deep south, especially those areas who suffered the carpetbaggers of Reconstruction, it is known as the War of Northern Aggression.