It's a section of the Colosseum… now where were we? Dachs calling everyone traitor (not without reason)… oh right. North Carolina's numbers being skewed by people deserting and re-enilisting whenever there was a harvest.
Well I would quibble with skewed* Yes NC's desertion rates were comparatively higher, but at the same time it still recorded the most combat deaths of any confederate state even with the fairly significant desertion rates.
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Also to ask another question - How should the North have reacted when the Klan and other former secessionists began to come back to power during reconstruction?
Here in NC the 1886 constitution and the new constitutions in other states were oversaw by Republicans, free Blacks, poor whites, etc. but general lack of support for law and order by the north against the former secessionist mobsters and klansmen ultimately destroyed a century of thriving two party (or even multi party) politics in various states, including NC.
I'd go so far to say - the North's general lack of care for the south after the initial reconstruction period is one of the greatest failures of this country and still drastically effects how this country is governed today. A lack of strong northern political will to do what was necessary ultimately is one of the biggest failures imo that we can draw from the Civil War
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Within 2 decades a century of 2 party politics in various states was ended - largely because of a lack of Northern care to protect the legal ordinances enshrined in the constitution. Winning a war is not enough - any tactical schmuck can win a war, governing a country is another thing altogether and I believe the North failed to effectively bring the south back in line and we reap some of the south's backwardness now still to this day.
