There was
way too much racism in this country in 1861-65 to make a convincing argument that southern soldiers in a majority were fighting for slavery.
In effect, they all were fighting for slavery. The percentage of individuals who realized they were and admitted it is quite separate from those who went in knowing what was at stake.
You are looking for a percentage of individuals who denied fighting for the right to keep slaves in their place--not being free and being next door. Such thoughts and commitments changed from month to month, if not week to week, and Channing's book attempts to track the changes more than to prove that X percent could be said to be fighting for slavery and that Y percent were not.
The guy early in the war who said he fought for freedom and returning to the real constitution might be saying, six months later, that he didn't want free blacks sitting by his children in church or school. Ms. Channing's main interest is in tracking the changes--not in proving that the majority fought for this or that reason.
way too much racism in this country in 1861-65
In this, I think you shoot your own foot. Johnny may not have been fighting to maintain slavery for slaveholders. He may not have been fighting for the right to own one or two. But he may well have been fighting to keep the blacks separate, under control, subjugated, away from himself and his family. Sounds like the racism of which there was way too much. And it sounds like the last category was also "fighting for slavery."
I'll submit that early on--during the first months after Sumter--that no one thought of invasion or protecting hearth and home. That no one expected the Yanks to put up much of a fight. That the war would be over after the first battle.
ole