For some, the Confederacy fought to preserve slavery; for others, it’s states’ rights

This blog post was written by Mike Staton.

The times they are a changin’.

It’s the title of a rather famous song by Bob Dylan, released as the title track of his 1964 album of the same name. He wrote it to create an anthem of change for the time.

The song fits my mood right now. Listen. Remember: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGzxWuLQP8.

We do change, right? We’re not the same people we were decades ago, right? We grow. Or de-evolve. We become better people. Or demons in human flesh.

In 1976, I joined a Civil War re-enactment group, a Confederate regiment, the 26^th North Carolina. It was a way for me to learn about the life of a soldier in the 1860s. One summer during my college years I’d drawn meticulous maps of Civil War battlefields, places in rural America that would collect forever-bloody names like Antietam, Gettysburg and The Wilderness…