The Confederacy Were The Bad Guys

I think the Civil War was too complex a story to simply say one side was good or bad. I agree with what someone below mentioned, which is it depends on where you live and other factors, as to which side of the Civil War, and all wars for that matter, are the 'good guys' or 'bad guys'.

Regardless of who started a given war, and what the reasons were, individual soldiers are where much of the cruelty originates. Yes, there are scorched earth policies for many Generals and armies, as witnessed in WWII and preceding wars, but when a 20,000+ man army is on the move in a given area, individual soldiers can be out of control.

Some Generals/officers can control most of the men under their command, but men can be very cruel, and soldiers in battle are worse.

"It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it."
Robert E. Lee

Generally speaking, yeah the Union was good while the Confederacy was bad because of the politics.

But on an individual level, there were some villains in the North, and there were some innocent people in the South. No area consists of 100% good people or 100% bad people.