Renegade Lyrics

Lyric discussion by Thgord08 

Cover art for Renegade lyrics by Warren Zevon

This is an amazing song to listen to, and obviously its about the South during the Civil War, yet it is mixed in with modern things (were there really high schools in the south in the 1860s)? I don't know enough about education in the US at that time to guess if thats right. I don't think that this is a song about promoting racial differences, but how is Warren, as the rock'n'roll guy he was (drinking, etc) comparing his "renegade" actions to Dixie?