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This is sort of stupid. Maybe the Confederates were more likely to be clean shaven because the Deep South is hotter than hell and there was no air conditioning at the time of the Civil War. It seems to me that the northerners tended towards longer beards and the southerners towards shorter ones. Perhaps weather is a big factor there.

My understanding is the Deep South is the source of such wise tidbits as "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" and they had outdoor kitchens for summer cooking to avoid heating the entire house. This tradition continues in some sense in that grilling outdoors is fairly popular in during summer in the South.

I grew up in Georgia, yet I pass out in the heat of Florida. If I were a man in the Deep South, I imagine I would be clean shaven just to try to stay cool.

This is just a really terrible analysis.

/fashion history fan

The article does not push a reason why there were differences, and the analysis is not about why, so to critique it because you have your own opinions of why is just a really terrible analysis.
Excerpt:

Confederates, on the other hand, kept things looser, perhaps in deference to a literal reading of Leviticus 19:27? Rebels also had more smooth-shaven faces, which might be explained by several factors. Facial hair became popular in the mid-1850’s, and it’s possible that the traditional South was more resistant to this trend. In addition, Abraham Lincoln was the first US President to have a beard (having, at times, a chin curtain and a goatee), and maybe clean-shavenness was a subtle protest by Confederate commanding officers.

It proposes several political/social/cultural reasons and says nothing about the difference in weather between north and south.

From the conclusion:

It’s difficult to say exactly why 9 in 10 officers went with facial hair. Perhaps it was an opportunity to distinguish one’s self in an otherwise uniform environment. Perhaps it was an attempt at normalcy during the bloodiest turmoil in American history. Or perhaps there was a running bet among officers on who could grow the craziest facial hair (our vote: Judson Kilpatrick). __Whatever the reasons__, the diversity and abundance of facial hair will remain one of the more prominent postscripts of this War between the States.

The article is about the process they went through to make up a fun comparison of civil war generals and their battles. Drawing a conclusion they do not make and then finding fault in that conclusion is not a fault of the article, but of your own reading.

...is not a fault of the article, but of your own reading.

That strikes me as uncomfortably close to an ad hominem.

But no cigar.
While I appreciate humor, and I have a beard myself, this is article is utterly depressing. As if the in vogue trend towards increasingly revolting ways in which we Americans comport ourselves, facial hair and otherwise, is not dismal enough, we have smoked ourselves so stupid to not even be ashamed of a piece like this. For an at least somewhat literate adult, to take even a few minutes to research that war and be left still so unaffected they could follow through with a bad late night party joke is nauseating.

When there is nothing left of your culture, know you are responsible. How funny do you think it would be to live in a world with no genuine scholarly journals? This whole "post-human dignity" generational trend is sickening. Mocking literacy itself. If you really can't wait to see what happens after it's all emoji and porn, then visit that very same history you laugh at. Go get high with some gamers dumb ass.

I guess 155 years is still "too soon" for you?
You should crosspost this to r/iamverysmart
what?
I believe he is attempting to illustrate that no matter what you do someone, somewhere will take offense to it.

Or he started drinking too early. One or the other.

Anyone who has to start a sentence with "While I appreciate humour, ..." has no sense of humour.