Help me with this

There are plenty of rituals here in Virginia that I have yet to understand.  I think of the absolute obsession that is Virginia Tech football.  I see people who I had known to be kind, good folks become hateful, vengeful, and grudge holding morons at the simple thought of another team being better.  I grew up in South Carolina.  That stuff just isn't a big deal.  Yes, we love our Gamecocks and Tigers, but we never really get too bothered by a loss.  We don't hold on to grudges when our teams lose.  However that's not what my blog is about.  Sorry for the tangent.  I guess I could just delete it, but it's my blog.  It stays.  What I want to discuss is something I discovered back around 2009 or so.  When discussing the day off I was getting soon for Martin Luther King Jr Day, someone suddenly said, "Lee-Jackson Day."  Me being me, I asked, "Who is Lee Jackson and what did he do?"  I was told that it was the holiday created to celebrate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.  I dismissed it and went on about my business.  However it seems to be a bigger deal than I wanted to give it credit for.  Considering I'm from South Carolina, the state that believes the Civil War is still at halftime, I didn't see it as a big enough deal.  However, it's huge here in Virginia.  Again, it's only celebrated in Virginia and isn't a major holiday.  If the banks don't close, it's not a big deal.  That's how I see it.  So my question is, why is this day such a big deal?  Why are people in Virginia, and anywhere in the south for that matter, so obsessed with the Civil War and in particular the Confederacy?  Now if I'm not mistaken, the Confederacy wanted to leave the United States of America.  They wanted to make their own country and destroy what George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others fought so hard for just 100 years earlier.  Not to mention the ideals of the Confederacy.  Most Confederate sympathizers will tell you that the war was for States' rights.  However most people with a modicum of intelligence know that the right that the Confederacy was after was the right to have slaves.  Not just that, but also the right to consider anything not Caucasian to be less than human.  How can anyone want to support that.  Yes it's true that ending slavery wasn't Abraham Lincoln's biggest priority.  In fact, it's worth noting that Lincoln said that if he could end this split of the Union without ending slavery, he would have done so.  In the end, Lincoln felt that slavery was a hindrance to the unity of the nation and went the way of abolishing slavery.  However, back to the issue, why are people in the south so down with two men who fought to reduce Africans to nothing but property?  Who really thinks it's okay to support two men whose biggest contribution to this country's history was trying to make the country history?  Makes you think.  Look at all the wonderful things that have happened to this country because of its existence.  We've won wars, expanded our country, and become the greatest country in the world.  We almost lost that opportunity because of this war.  And you can give it all the fancy names you want, it's still the worst war ever.  When a country fights itself, it's never good.  To celebrate people instrumental to the destruction of your country is foolhardy at best.   Here's my biggest issue, they lost.  Now you can look at the history of sports for this.  Since when did losers get celebrated?  When the Steelers lost to the Packers in the last Super Bowl, I don't think Pittsburgh had a parade.  When the Rangers lost the World Series, they didn't spray champagne on themselves.  So why is it that when two people tried to destroy this country and failed miserably at it, we have a day to celebrate their "contributions"?  I know I'm going to upset some of my Confederate sympathizer friends, but I don't care.  It's fact that this isn't a huge enough deal to warrant celebration.  The bank isn't closed, it's not a big deal.  Oh, and whoever thought it was a good idea to turn Martin Luther King Jr Day into Lee-Jackson-King Day in Virginia from 1984 till 2000, he/she should be checked for stupid pill overdosing.  To those in the lower half of the Mason-Dixon Line, let go of the Confederate love.  It's over, there is no need to hold on anymore.  Yes, it's good to study Civil War history.  Yes, it's great to understand American history and what things should and shouldn't be done to make us better.  However to hold on to the ideals that almost destroyed this country, that's not a great look.