The winners

I was watching a video in science the other day about the first submarine ever built. It was built during the civil war and sunk after it's first successful mission. It is an inspiring movie, but it brings up an interesting point.
At the  climax of the movie the submarine carrying explosives blows up the enemy ship. Because it is such a good movie, the students in my class felt obliged to stand and cheer. One shouted "Take that reb's!" (Reb's being short for rebels or confederates).
I for one had noticed the "Dixie land" song being sung and the gray uniforms (Not to mention the enormous confederate flag),  so I said "Those weren't confederates dying, those were union. You just cheered for the advocates of slavery". There was a long silence, and then people decided to go on watching. I guess I sounded a little mean, but I always hate it when the "Winners write the history books" spirit is taken seriously.
I was somewhat angry somewhat unjustly. No one can claim they haven't ever made that assumption before. Whether it is human nature or just culture, something seems to have taught us that the winners are the good guys.
But that doesn't make the submarine mens actions any less heroic. Even  though they fought under the flag of slavery, none of them actually owned or directly supported slavery. The ship they blew up was killing countless civilians. I don't say they deserved to die, but in the end the submarine men saved more lives than they took.
But none of this would have happened if the war had never happened in the first place.