southern unionists werent non existent eitherWe can only hope and pray that the Donald is nothing like the tyrant murderer Lincoln.
Lincoln held the Union together and brought about the end of slavery......he didn't start the war, the democrats did....
Correction- Southern White Democrat males started the war.
Millions of Northern white Democrats supported the Union.
Indeed. The "South" was bitterly divided between the sides. The counties of northwestern Virginia seceded from Virginia for that reason. And even there it wasn't a united front --- some of the counties seceded not because they wanted to but because they were occupied by Union troops. East Tennessee attempted to do the same thing and was coerced by military force to shut up. In fact its local Senator Johnson was the only Senator to remain in the US Senate despite the state's secession (and then became President upon Lincoln's death).
"Civil" war is an entire subdimension of War. It means not only two sides but anarchy and chaos within a side. There is always a noble contingent within that wants no part of either side but just wants to protect its own turf and peace. The more militant of these in the Civil War were called Bushwhackers, and operated as scouts and snipers against any passing army, whether wearing blue or grey (and that wasn't always clear; sometimes they traveled in disguise). On the other side there were the "Home Guards", locals who operated on behalf of whichever army happened to be in control at the time. This is a whole third dimension, like Star Trek's three-dimensional chess, beyond the binary concept of two-sided war -- this is four sides with two of them frequently changing sides and the other two frequently impersonating the opposite side. When we describe "brother against brother" it's a lot more complex than one brother goes blue and the other goes grey. The War disrupted commerce, railroads, food supplies --- everything.
The Confederacy was by no means at all a united front. It's said that its war "died of states rights" when the Richmond government demanded troops and state governors said no.
"Standard" wars can almost fit into a binary description of "A against B". "Civil" (intranational) war is a whole 'nother thing.
>> Greene County [Tennessee] changed hands about forty times during the course of the war. No major battles were fought, but skirmishes and ambushes between the two sides were a regular occurrence. The bands of roving Yankees and Rebels had to live off the land. Consequently, they terrorized the local farm families. << -- The Tree in the Churchyard: A Bicentennial History of Meadow Creek, -pp. 21-22 (emphasis added)
How dare you bring nuance or facts into this discussion!