Reasonable people can unironically agree with this statement without being a bad person or condoning slavery, so I suppose it's an illustrative point.

That statement is unintentionally factually accurate and clearly an attempt to make someone try to defend the despised enemy, which really proves my point. The Confederacy were obviously wrong on slavery but if they were right on something else then "Union media" would be the last place you'd find an objective account of it.