I look at a Confederate soldier monument and I see brave defenders of self-government and constitutional liberty. Men who fought because their state asked them to. Most did not own slaves, but their states tolerated the institution. Others see other things.
When I see a soldiers monument for Union veterans (and I did this summer in my trek across Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts), I see men who (mostly) fought bravely, but also violated the Constitution and suppressed representative democracy. I do know that nobody in the northern communities where they exist see them that way, nor did anyone who erected those monuments do so to celebrate crushing the Constitution and representative democracy, so I give them the benefit of the doubt. I wish southerners got the same generosity.