Ital. mine
There was no Civil War. It was the War of Northern Aggression, so your terminology makes one suspicious. :dubious:
If we’re going to do this, the South fired the first shots. The North acted like any government would, in ensuring its own forts on its own territory were kept supplied, and did not fire on its own people until the South crossed that Rubicon of its own free will.
What Derleth said. The south fired on Ft. Sumter which ignited the civil war in defense of “states rights, “ which meant the state’s right to own African slaves needed mainly to pick cotton - the south’s main export. My husband was a civil war re-enactor and got me into it. Authenticity was encouraged – e.g., no modern devices in view of the visitors. I grew tired of it because we women were either working women – cooking over a camp fire and doing needlework (not for me), or window dressing: period-correct hair-do, hat, high-collar bodice, corset, cage (metal framework beneath the petticoats to make the skirt full), cotton stockings, specific footwear depending on the terrain, etc., etc. then standing around doing nothing. Not sure why, but there were always more Confederate re-enactors than Union, so some re-enactors had to switch sides to even things out. Eventually, I just stopped going to these things, and hubby eventually got out of the hobby because of knee and back problems (battle re-enactments are physically demanding). He’s now doing WWII, which means basically social events. Hubby told me that our civil war is very big in certain European countries, especially the UK. I don’t know why. Perhaps a Brit can chime in about it.
That’s a great phrase. 
Probably because it’s sufficiently reasonably close to our own time that the food and the clothes and the manners and mores aren’t totally weird, and it doesn’t require you to attempt a foreign language persona.
I think a lot of people would consider the fashions, customs, and everyday living of the mid-19th century to be weird. I think it’s more a matter of overly romanticizing about it and fantasizing about what one’s role would be. To pull off a good impression takes a lot of effort and money to acquire and build the wardrobe, and learn the manners and comportment appropriate to the 19th century (soldier or civilian).