On Mon, 21 Aug 2017 16:43:13 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:


The Confederacy was not recognized as a legitimate government by anyone.

Actually Lincoln had to recognize that Virginia had left the union to
be able to form West Virginia (article IV)

Lincoln's compassion more or less set the tone for
the south to rebuild. Some loyalists in the north would have preferred
to see it burned to the ground, its senior leaders and field grade
officers executed, and the farms and factories of the supporters of the
confederacy turned over to the former slaves who worked them.

That is certainly the way history spins it but, just like Germany and
Japan, they had to make a lot of concessions or the war would have
never ended.
Most notably the Japanese emperor was not charged with any crimes and
allowed to remain. In Germany there was no real effort to pay
reparations to the jews, restore their property or try to find wealth
cached in Switzerland.