I know many people choose the "rebel" flag, and I have done some research, but this flag does not represent southern heritage, or the confederacy as a whole.
I ask this, because I'm intend to get a tattoo that represents my fascination with the civil war (and American history), and particularly the confederacy because I had multiple family members that served on the Confederate side.
I don't want to be deemed a racist just because I want to memorialize my past. I realize that the civil war was mostly due to slavery issues, and I don't want anything that openly represents slavery.
Also, I watched the rebel yell video on the Smithsonian website and many Confederate veterans were waving the "rebel" flag in the 1930s video.
Tl;Dr - how can I accurately represent my family's history of fighting for the confederacy without looking like an ignorant person or a racist person?
I'll echo what TreeOfMadrigal has said. Despite what the "states rights" crowd says, there's no separating the issue of racism from the Civil War. And if you choose a recognizable symbol from the Confederacy, those who see it will assume you sympathize with what it represents. You may look at it and see family, others will look at it and see the Confederacy.
With that said, if you are absolutely determined to get a tattoo memorializing your relatives, you could get the rank insignia (of one or more of your relatives) as a tattoo. It's more abstract and it speaks more to the individual, but you still run the risk of this being recognized as Confederate symbols--especially if you are in the South.
I do not think you are going to find a satisfactory answer to this.
Southern motivations for secession are absolutely centered around the prevention of (and the fear of) abolition.
I highly recommend against a tattoo of anything resembling the stars and bars. Southern society was non-representative, agrarian-based, and entirely dependent on the institution of slavery.
If you are dead-set on getting a tattoo (which I discourage), might I recommend particular State flags? (so long as it does not include the Stars and Bars). Or perhaps regimental flags or insignia, related to those within which your particular family members served?..for instance, I am particularly interested in the "Fighting" 69th Infantry Regiment out of New York, made up mostly of Irish immigrants and Irish-Americans...the unit flag, coat of arms, or the harp symbol would all work pretty well. Is there something similar regarding those regiments which you are interested in? I would suggest looking more-locally, rather than for something representative of the Southern Cause as a whole, so as to avoid the greater Slavery-cause that was the main purpose of the Confederacy, and focus instead on the reasons many poor, individual Southerners themselves fought for the Confederacy: home, the family plot, the Southern aristocratic martial code (to which they might aspire, if they are not a part of), the wife back home (to whom they would have been wedded in love--a relative new trend, supplanting the old arranged marriages or marriages based on mutual financial benefits--attested to in the many, many letters back and forth.
that unit the 44th Ala. was in some of the most famous and deadly actions of the entire war. They lost half their men in the famous sunken lane at Antietam and lost about 1/3 of that brigade fighting in Devils Den and Little Round top at Gettysburg. They also fought at Chickamauga. Perhaps there is some neutral symbol of those actions? like the image of Little Round top? if you google Chickamauga images you will see one of a couple of cannon, a rock monument to Gen Thomas (the 44th was involved in that famous stand) photos of Lookout Mt. etc.
The unit was not in the Lookout Mt. action but my neighbors always had a small ceramic model of the mountain which always impressed me
The company or battalion flag. Every unit usually has one, and you never never need to bring up the confederacy if you don't want