Fables of the Reconstruction

Slavery was/is bad. That's indisputable. It's disgusting, immoral, and it's a stain that we will carry with us as a nation, and particularly the South, forever. The Southern leadership was wrong to try to preserve it and they were wrong in how they treated the Freedmen afterwards. The behavior was reprehensible and shameful. Johnston County gave nearly 1/3 of all of its men to fight for the Confederate military during the American Civil War. On the surface, it confuses me why someone would want to defend the Confederate cause of preserving the heinous practice of slavery. But what if some joined this army, not completely out of racism, but partly out of their own fear?