Reddit reviews The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The "Great Truth" about the "Lost Cause"

> to actually kind of getting it.

Unfortunately the "it" you've gotten is the Neoconfederate whitewashing of history. I recommend you read:

• Declarations of Causes of Seceding States
  
• The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader.
  
  
• Race and Reunion - covers much of the whitewashing of the South's motives, and the refocusing from slavery to the value-neutral worship of battlefield heroes.
  
  The South was not genocidal, so no, they weren't literally Hitler. But they did secede over slavery. "No, they seceded over the right to own slaves" is the same thing. Be very careful accepting the Neo-Confederate whitewashing of American history. As their own words indicate, institutions and beliefs they fought for all boiled down to white supremacy and slavery. They were not advocates for states' rights, and the Confederacy itself did not give its states the right to decide slavery.
  
  Here is a decent article on the subject. Here is another decent list of quotations from prominent Southerners on the centrality of slavery leading up to the Civil War.
  
  Be careful falling for the "they fought for their beliefs" argument. No kidding, the Nazis and iSIS and everyone who isn't a straight mercenary is fighting for beliefs. That alone is not ennobling of the cause. We still have to look at the cause for which they fought. Moral neutrality is in practice just a fig-leaf covering what someone happens to admire, or at the very least they don't find it all that offensive.

History textbooks today are so beyond horrible. It's part of why I hated history classes in school. They ignore so many primary documents; it's quite sad.

I would suggest you check out this book...
http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything-ebook/dp/B0041OT8EK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405829084&sr=8-1&keywords=lies+me+teacher+told+me

And this one if you want more of a only Civil War book...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Confederate-Neo-Confederate-Reader-Great/dp/1604732199/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405829118&sr=8-1&keywords=neoconfederate+reader