Had a friend living in Richmond, Va about 15 years ago. He was at a party. A guy recognized him as a Yankee (my friend is from Detroit) and the guy starts chatting him up asking my friend,"You guys (Yankees) talk about the war much?" My friend tells me he's thinking of the debacle in Iraq, when the Richmond native says incredulously,"No man, You guys talk about the Civil War much?" Some folks cannot let stuff go, I guess.
True enough. I'm a Richmonder myself, actually, and while I can't say it comes up a lot in daily conversation, it's still on some people's minds. I mean, we have several monuments to Confederate generals right in the middle of town. Charlottesville, a town about 70 miles west of us (where UVA is) has been tried to get rid of one of theirs, and is facing protests (and thankfully counter-protests). There's at least one house on the route I take to drop my daughter off at her grandmother's that has a Confederate flag out front, for example. I'm not aware of the same push to remove them, although it is starting to be talked about.
Some of my fellow high-schoolers flew dual confederate flags atop their twin-diesel trucks. Then, my first university had thousands of the same type of folk. At the same university, I came to understand, through an elective sociology class, how racism has been historically employed as a social tool to marginalize an influx of migrant workers willing to work harder and/or for less money. With rural America's lessening demand for labor (quelled by continued industrialization/automation), continued Hispanic influx, and the slow expansion of civil rights across all races, white males are scurred, especially the elder ones. I think that's allowing some toxic ideologies to cling desperately to life. Including the grudges passed down through generations related to losing a war. I've long since left rural culture, but I'll still get samples, sometimes. It's foreign to me now, but I grew up in the Baptist Church of rural city, averaging probably ~90% weekly attendance over a decade's worth of Sundays.