Desertions v. AWOL in the Confederate Armies in 1862

[gary]

During my research, I noticed that many soldiers initially marked down as "deserted" were subsequently carried on their company's muster roll as "AWOL." I suspect that this was done to encourage the soldier's return. Deserters could be drummed out & disgraced (which meant the unit permanently lost the soldier) or shot (with the same result). AWOL on the other hand carried a lesser punishment (extra guard, carrying a fench rail, barrel shirt, blah-blah) which retained the soldier and restored him to duties.

Your insights into desertion v. AWOL in the Cornfed army of '62 is appreciated.

[larry_cockerham]

Many times the soldiers in the first round of the war (the time period you referred to) signed contracts for brief periods of service, so they couldn't be legally held. Remember these men were fighting on their on territory and had farms and families that they were trying to protect as well. Early on it was absence rather than desertion. Later on things got a bit tougher. The Confederates, for the most part, were drafted or citizen soldiers, not those fancy army boys from up north.

[hoosier]

I'm not sure if I've told this story before, but back in 1970 I was serving as assistant company clerk of a basic training company at Fort Dix, NJ.

One day a guy wearing corporal's stripes walked into the orderly room. The first sergeant took one look at him and snarled, "Get them stripes off that uniform."

I subsequently found out that this guy had gone AWOL months before. Somebody had decided not to mark him as AWOL on the daily reports, believing that he was going to come back.

By the time they realized he'd really gone over the hill, it was too late to start marking him as AWOL without having to face embarrassing questions about what duties the guy had been performing during the time he had officially been listed as present for duty. They had to file forms requesting his permanent assignment to the company.

The guy was smart enough to figure out that, if he was officially assigned to the company, a paycheck would be sent to the company in his name every month.

So the guy showed up on payday every month, collected his paycheck, and then vanished again for another month. The company officers, both commissioned and NCO, despised the guy, but they had to give him the paycheck, or somebody would start wondering why the paycheck hadn't been cashed, leading to the same sort of embarrassing questions the company leadership was still trying to avoid.

For all I know, the guy is still showing up and collecting his paycheck from the Army every month.

The problem with when to declare somebody AWOL or a deserter lasted a long time past the end of the Civil War.

[larry_cockerham]

Neat story, thanks! This question in the civil war had a lot to do with time and place. As you might suspect the lovely JAG colonel wasn't around to uphold the soldier's rights in all cases. Lot's of young men were shot as examples. Others returned after a quick trip home. MIA would have also been a category that would have been a bit difficult for the CSA to monitor.