As you are noticing, Jackie, history is written by the victorious. Victory can be in holding the wealth and power as well as in military conquest. Plus, the people who were literate enough and had the luxury to read and write were the wealthy. The servant and slave classes didn't have the time, the ability or the power to publish, and their stories are not well told.

You can get a taste of lower-class life in civil war letters, but it is hard to work through the spellings.