"Inducing Southerners to Desert in 1865" Topic

"On March 3, 1865, as the nation entered what became, though it could not have been known at the time, the final campaign of the war in the east, Congress approved an amendment offering amnesty to Union deserters, provided they returned to the ranks by May 10. President Lincoln announced the amnesty on March 11 (General Lee had announced a similar amnesty for Southerners in mid-February). All Union deserters, who either returned to their units or reported "themselves to a provost marshal, shall be pardoned, on condition that they return to their regiments and companies, or to such other organizations as they may be assigned to, and serve the remainder of their original term of enlistment, and…a period equal to the time lost by desertion." Those who did not return to the ranks would lose "their rights of citizenship and their rights to become citizens," as well as the opportunity to hold "any office of trust or profit under the United States." As similar amnesties had been offered during the war, Lincoln's proclamation did not surprise me. But another plan did.

Even as the government tried to entice Union deserters back into the ranks, General Grant sought to induce Confederate soldiers to desert and come into the Union lines. By late-February, senior commanders sent daily tallies of deserters coming into their lines, to Grant's headquarters. For example, on March 2, Gen. Horatio Wright reported 12 Southerners coming into his line, "seven bringing their arms." Though I have not yet located a copy, Grant had previously issued an order suggesting that deserters might be paid for any weapons they brought with them, as evidenced by his question to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton on March 3: A great many deserters are coming in from the enemy bringing their arms with them, expecting the pay for them as a means of a little ready cash. Would there be any objection to amending my order so as to allow this? Stanton replied, "There is no objection to your paying rebel deserters for their arms, horses, or anything they bring in, a full and fair price. That kind of trade will not injure the service."…"

From here

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Armand

As I pointed out in an earlier thread, I had one uncle who served in the CSA as a replacement for a local landowners son. He was captured in 1863 and after several months in prison, he and others from his unit volunteered to join the Union Army as military prison guards.
After the war, he collected a Union pension and after 1876, a CSA pension paid by the State. He was able to keep the 500 acres that he got to be a replacement. He also was able to pay the back USA taxes because he had saved his Army wages from prison guard duty.

The situation in 1865 was its own inducement. Just listen to The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

Thanks

Armand