"Desertion (Confederate) during the Civil War" Topic
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Tango01 | 04 Oct 2019 8:58 p.m. PST |
"Desertion occurs when soldiers deliberately and permanently leave military service before their term of service has expired. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), both the Union and Confederate armies were plagued by deserters, whose absence depleted the strength of their respective forces. Historians traditionally have distinguished between "stragglers"—those soldiers who leave with the intention of returning—and deserters, who are absent without leave, or AWOL, for thirty days or more. The reasons soldiers left, meanwhile, included poor equipment, food, and leadership. Some acts of desertion have also been described as a form of political protest. Confederate Virginians fled military service at a rate of between 10 and 15 percent, more or less comparable to the desertion rate among Union troops, which stood between 9 and 12 percent. Prior to mid-1862, desertion was lightly punished if at all, but following the Confederate Conscription Act of April 1862, enforcement was often harsh and included execution. MORE… Historians have argued over the proper way to interpret the act of desertion—whether it should be regarded as a protest against the state or a reaction to the specific and immediate problems that soldiers faced (such as inadequate rations, excessively strict officers, etc.). Consensus has been made more difficult by the lack of reliable quantitative evidence demonstrating both the volume and timing of desertion. Patterns in Virginia suggest that Virginia's Confederate soldiers deserted for a variety of reasons. A careful study of the 44th Virginia Infantry Regiment revealed a shockingly high desertion rate of nearly 30 percent, but it persuasively attributed this to a range of quotidian factors faced by soldiers in the regiment, including faulty equipment, spoiled food, and unresponsive officers. In other words, the complex set of factors that shaped Virginians' decisions to abandon the army cannot be reduced to a simple expression of discontent over the Confederate war effort. Without a doubt, Confederate soldiers disliked many of their government's policies, but most pursued other ways of expressing those concerns…" Main page link Amicalement Armand
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Au pas de Charge | 09 Oct 2019 9:57 a.m. PST |
Frankly, the desertion doesnt surprise me that much. I dont know how they got those men to fight and die for as long as they did. |
Tango01 | 09 Oct 2019 12:06 p.m. PST |
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donlowry | 10 Oct 2019 9:05 a.m. PST |
My wife's great-grandfather was in Bushrod Johnson's division at Chickamauga. Later, up in East Tennessee (presumably cold and hungry, possibly without shoes) during Dec '63 he deserted. One of my own ggfs (father's side) was conscripted by the Confederates, apparently when Lyon's cavalry swept through western Kentucky during Hood's "siege" of Nashville. The story in the family was that he complained so long and loud that they finally let him go home. (My guess is he snuck off some night.) The family was always Republican (or anti-Democrat) after that, if not before. (A ggf on my mother's side was in the Union army.) |
Bill N | 10 Oct 2019 10:52 a.m. PST |
I had an ancestor who joined in 1861, was captured, and was paroled home. When he got home he joined a new unit in 1862 while on parole. When he was finally exchanged he failed to report to his former unit and was listed as a deserter by his original unit. In addition during the time he was on parole his original enlistment in his first unit expired. While the conscription act would have authorized his conscription back into his original regiment there is no record of him having been conscripted. So my ancestor was listed as a deserter from an army that he was serving in based on an enlistment which had expired before his alleged desertion. |
Tango01 | 10 Oct 2019 12:21 p.m. PST |
Thanks!. Amicalement Armand
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deadhead | 16 Oct 2019 11:13 a.m. PST |
This sort of discussion does bring home to me just how recent, in some ways, was the ACW. Folk here on this forum can tell tales of their great ancestors' experiences…but in a civil war. That is very different from most UK experience of what great grandad did in WWII or the old boy in the photo, with the moustache and puttees, from WWI. My Mom remembered vividly seeing neighbouring farms burned in Tipperary. She always said it was the Black and Tans. No way, she was only born in 1916. The farms were burnt all right, but by Irish Free State soldiers in our own (very small scale by comparison, but extremely nasty) Civil War. |
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