Confederate Deserters Don't Get Their Just Deserts

 

Confederate Desertion

Desertion was a tremendous problem for the Confederate army. At General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Virginia in April 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia was as much as 1/3 below its official strength due to desertion.

 Confederate newspapers howled for strict and harsh punishments for deserters until late 1863. July 3rd, 1863 saw Lee's defeat at Gettysburg and July 4th, 1863 General Grant conquered Vicksburg, closing the entire Mississippi River to the Confederacy as well as cutting it in half. Sober military men from general to private could see the Confederacy was doomed. The question of who wants to be the last man to die for a real “lost cause” arose. Who wanted to die so draft exempt rich slave owners could continue to be rich slave owners.

At first, desertion was often a matter of obtaining leave and then not returning. By late 1864, large areas of the Confederacy not under Union control were actually controlled by organized bands of deserters. Confederate governors attempted to use underage and overage men in the local home guards to round up deserters. These efforts met with uneven success.     North Carolina had provided the largest percentage of Lee's army, and it was easiest for North Carolinians to desert. Governor Zebulon Vance offered amnesty to deserters who turned themselves in. It met with little success. Two months before his surrender, Lee pleaded with Governor Vance to increase efforts to find and return deserters. By then, the Confederates were so short of manpower, desertion was not even entered into service records if a man returned, let alone punished for it.

Deserters were not the only miscreants militia patrols pursued.  Draft dodgers were plentiful and often joined the deserter bands for protection.

The captions read "Come along you rascal and fight for King Cotton." "Let me go. I tell you I am a Union man and don't believe in your Southern Confederacy." "Blast your Union! Them as won't go in for the war must be made to do so. Go ahead, or we'll hang you on the next tree."

To avoid the draft or being seized as a deserter, there was a scramble to obtain a certificate of being in an exempt occupation. Being part of Southern judicial system provided an exemption. In one county, 1200 men were appointed as justices of the peace to exempt them. 

A British citizen was conscripted into the Confederate Army. He took his case to a state court where he had been impressed.  His lawyer argued that under a treaty of 1795 between Great Britain and the US, the two powers had agreed not to conscript the other's citizens.  The judge ruled that no such treaty existed with the Confederate States of America.  The plaintiff's lawyer then threatened to take the case to the Supreme Court of the Confederacy.  The judge laughed, saying, "Counsel knows as well as I do there is no Supreme Court of the Confederate States."  Presumably, the Englishman had to serve.

As you can read in the clippings below, reactions ranged from a desperate father looking to buy a deserter to trade for a thirty day furlough for his son, to hysteria that the Masons were helping Confederate Masons to desert. 

HEADQUARTERS CONFEDERATE STATES ARMIES
Feb. 24, 1865.

HIS EXCELLENCY Z. B. VANCE
GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA
RALEIGH

GOVERNOR: The state of despondency that now prevails among our people is producing a bad effect upon the troops. Desertions are becoming very frequent, and there is good reason to believe that they are occasioned to a considerable extent by letters written to the soldiers by their friends at home. In the last two weeks several hundred have deserted from Hill's corps, and as the divisions from which the greatest number of desertions have taken place are composed chiefly of troops from North Carolina, they furnish a corresponding proportion of deserters. I think some good can be accomplished by the efforts of influential citizens to change public sentiment and cheer the spirits of the people. It has been discovered that despondent persons represent to their friends in the army that our cause is hopeless, and that they had better provide for themselves. They state that the number of deserters is so large in the several counties that there is no danger to be apprehended from the home-guards. The deserters generally take their arms with them. The greater number are from regiments from the western part of the State. So far as the despondency of the people occasions this sad condition of affairs, I know of no other means of removing it than by the counsel and exhortation of prominent citizens. If they would explain to the people that the cause is not hopeless, that the situation of affairs, though critical, is so to the enemy as well as ourselves, that he has drawn his troops from every other quarter to accomplish his designs against Richmond, and that his defeat now would result in leaving nearly our whole territory open to us; that this great result can be accomplished if all will work diligently, and that his successes are far less valuable in fact than in appearance, - I think our sorely-tried people would be induced to make one more effort to bear their sufferings a little longer, and regain some of the spirit that marked the first two years of the war. If they will, I feel confident that with the blessing of God what seems to be our greatest danger will prove the means of deliverance and safety.

Trusting that you will do all in your power to help us in this great emergency.

I remain, very respectfully, your obt. servt.,

R. E. LEE
General.

HEADQUARTERS CONFEDERATE STATES ARMIES

March 9, 1865.

HIS EXCELLENCY Z. B. VANCE
GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA
RALEIGH

GOVERNOR: I received your letter of the 2d inst. and return you my sincere thanks for your zealous efforts in behalf of the army and the cause. I have read with pleasure and attention your proclamation and appeal to the people, as also extracts from your addresses. I trust you will infuse into your fellow-citizens the spirit of resolution and patriotism which inspires your own action. I have now no cavalry to spare for the purpose you mention, and regret that I did not receive the suggestion at an earlier period. I think it a very good one, and would have been glad to adopt it. I have sent a force of infantry under Brigadier-general Johnson to guard the line of the Roanoke and operate as far as practicable in the adjacent counties to arrest deserters. Another detachment of 500 men under Colonel McAllister has been sent to Chatham and Moore counties, in which the bands of deserters were represented to be very numerous. They will, however, operate in other quarters as occasion may require. They are instructed to take no prisoners among those deserters who resist with arms the civil or military authorities. I hope you will raise as large a force of local troops to co-operate with them as you can, and think the sternest course is the best with the class I have referred to. The immunity which these lawless organizations afford is a great cause of desertion, and they cannot be too sternly dealt with. I hope you will be able to aid General Johnson, who needs all the reinforcements you can give him. If he can check the progress of General Sherman, the effect would be of the greatest value. I hope the late success of General Bragg near Kinston will revive the spirits of the people and render your labors less arduous. The conduct of the widow lady whom you mention deserves the highest commendation. If all our people possessed her spirit, our success I should feel to be assured.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE, General.

I Want to Buy A Deserter For My Son

NC Daily Confederate

September 17, 1864

I will give a reward of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for any DESERTER that is arrested and tendered to me. Gen. Lee has issued an order, offering every soldier who will arrest a deserter, thirty days furlough: and when a citizen arrests one, he has a right to turn him over to the Enrolling officer in the name of any soldier in the  army he may choose, and ask for a furlough for him. My son has been three years and a half in the army, and has never had a furlough; and I wish to get one for him, by buying this right of turning over to the Enrolling officer a deserter.

ANDREW H.H. DAWSON—Louisburg, N.C.

No More Yankee Deserters to be Recruited

The Chattanooga Rebel

January 16, 1865

It appears that the organization of deserters, alluded to in former letters, extends throughout the whole length of the Alleghany range, from Northern Virginia to northern Alabama, and is a more serious matter than we at first supposed. Whether serious enough to justify the universal suspension of habeas corpus, is another question. Many men, to whose judgment I am inclined to defer, think it is. I shall have more to say on this subject hereafter.

Officers of the army say that General Gordon has asked permission to send the Louisianans in his division, some 400 in number, and all that remain in Lee's army, home to recruit. And I have heard, but not officially, that General Lee approves the plan. It is also said that for reasons which need not be given here, no more deserters from the Yankee army will be allowed to enlist in the (Confederate) foreign legion.

Deserters Captured At A Cost

Western NC Sentinel September 22, 1864

Colonel Masten, the commandant of the Home Guard in the county, informs us that the result thus far of the efforts of the Guard to arrest deserters and recusant conscripts has been in the return to the service of 43. A portion of these surrendered upon hearing the proclamation of the governor, others were not men in the “bushes,” but who had remained beyond their time at home and had incurred the character of deserters, while still others, we are not informed exactly how many, were genuine woodsmen, who had been laying out for months, and some even for years.

This is a better result than we anticipated, and will certainly be some remuneration for the trouble and cost of the expedition. If all the other battalions in the State had been as successful, the broken regiments of General Lee's army will be materially strengthened. But we cannot let this opportunity pass without expressing the hope that the next legislature will do better than the last Conservative Legislature did, and that some more efficient plan will be devised by which the same work may be done without the suspension of the entire business of the county. It is an awful tax upon the people to be called, at a time like the present, for months into the woods to hunt deserters. The lesson taught too, may be an important one to those communities that have harbored rather than endeavored to induce the deserter to return to the flag of his country.           

The Threats of Deserters and Tories

NC Daily Confederate 

July 21, 1864

We understand that there were some 300 deserters and Tories assembled near Yadkinville, Yadkin County, on Friday last--that they were going in the direction of Wilkes County, with a view, It is thought, of cooperating with the notorious Tory chief Colonel Kirk. These brigands declare they intend to take possession of the polls in the Western counties, that they intend themselves to vote for Holden, and that no man shall be allowed to vote unless he votes the Holden ticket. This information coincides with what we have heard from various sources in the West. That this determination does exist, on the part of the Tories and deserters, and that they are combining and organizing with that view, we have not a particle of doubt. 

By the Governor of North Carolina.

A proclamation.

24th August 1864

Whereas, it is reported to me that many soldiers from the troops of this state have deserted their colors and comrades, and are now lurking in the woods and mountains, some of them subsisting by forcing their friends to violate the laws by aiding them, and others by violent depredations upon peaceable citizens., entailing shame and obloquy upon themselves and their posterity, outraging the laws and peace of the society, and damaging the cause of their hard pressed country; and, whereas General Robert E. Lee, in General Order, number 54, August 10th, 1864, has promised to deal leniently with all who promptly returned to duty, though they may have incurred the penalties of desertion by the prolonged absence without authority:

Now, therefore, I,  Zebulon B. Vance, governor of the state of North Carolina, do issue this month proclamation, urging most earnestly upon all such misguided men to wipe out from their once respected names the foul stain of desertion, by promptly returning to the post of duty, in accordance with the said General Order number 54, promising to all such who voluntarily return or surrender themselves to the proper authorities a full and free pardon, or the infliction of only the mildest penalties of the military law, except those who have been guilty of capital felonies against the lives and properties of the citizens; and this promise shall hold good for 30 days from the date hereof. And I hereby warn all such who refuse to comply with these terms, that the utmost power of the state will be exerted to capture them. 

While inveighing against Tories and Deserters in the clipping above, the NC Daily Confederate started almost foaming at the mouth in the same issue with the following long screed claiming the Masons were harboring  deserters in great numbers

The Masons Are Harboring Deserters!

NC Daily Confederate

July 21, 1864