Aot - 1865

[prroh]

truely love to write a book along the lines of what the trip home was like for those parolled men.

Or deserters passing themselves off as parolees

 

[larry_cockerham]

Or deserters passing themselves off as parolees

Somewhere in your innerds I detect a hint of dislike for the AOT soldier. Shame on you. After what they had gone through before 1865, dessertion was not even an option. There was nothing left to desert from. A young man 1,000 miles from home stayed with the outfit. That was the thread by which he clung to life. Many simply fell by the wayside. Dead.

 

[prroh]

Somewhere in your innerds I detect a hint of dislike for the AOT soldier. Shame on you.

Your detection skills are broken. I have no feelings about AoT soldiers who were let down by incompetent leaders, other than pity. Shame on you for being so presumptive. There is a mystic among family legends that deserters actually walked home when a parole was also a railroad pass. Your fantasy is not reality and don't cast stones my way for seeing what was, not what was dreamed.

 

[larry_cockerham]

Your detection skills are broken. I have no feelings about AoT soldiers who were let down by incompetent leaders, other than pity. Shame on you for being so presumptive. There is a mystic among family legends that deserters actually walked home when a parole was also a railroad pass. Your fantasy is not reality and don't cast stones my way for seeing what was, not what was dreamed.

I'm more or less focused on a very specific period while your response reads a bit more like generalities. Your generalization, as you doubtless will agree, is probably accurate. The whole Confederate structure was perhaps less than competent. The leaders of the AOT in the field had a better score. You know about such folks as Beauregard, Hood and Johnston. I'm talking/writing about the captains and sergeants. Those were the guys who determined the soldiers odds when the lead got heavy. The rest was a little Divine providence, about the only way a man got through this war. I ain't throwing rocks. My aim's still better than that. Thanks for defending your position. You have *****.

 

[larry_cockerham]

That last word was s p u n k .

 

[prroh]

I'm more or less focused on a very specific period while your response reads a bit more like generalities. Your generalization, as you doubtless will agree, is probably accurate.

How many AoT deserted between Franklin and Bentonville? Include "being late coming back from furlough" as deserters, cause that what they were. know what i don't blame them. The CSA was a dead issue in 1865.

 

[larry_cockerham]

How many AoT deserted between Franklin and Bentonville? Include "being late coming back from furlough" as deserters, cause that what they were. know what i don't blame them. The CSA was a dead issue in 1865.

Between Franklin and Corinth, Burnsville and Rienzi, Mississippi Nov 30, 1864 until Jan 1, 1865 the answer is likely none. Furloughs were issued for a couple of weeks after that. Your guess is as good as mine during that three week period. Remember most of these men were no where near home, so dissertion wasn't all that attractive. The same thing was true as the regiments, or what was left of them made their way across Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and north from Charlotte. After Charlotte, I'll bet a lot of folks had all kinds of thoughts, but they were on trains by then and confined. If in fact, and I wouldn't be surprised, a few men at a time simply missed a turn in the road and started north on that trip, I wouldn't blame him. Nothing that had occurred in the recent past would have bolstered his confidence in the Confederacy. Only his own grit, peer pressure from his comrades and pure luck kept these men alive and headed for Bill Sherman. The CSA was only a dead issue to those who weren't still in the CSA.

 

[TerryB]

Ed Brady of the 28th Tenn consolidated was released from Camp Chase on May 12, 1865, and he was given a voucher for transport as far as Nashville. Yet Stanley F. Horn's book Tennessee's War contains an account of officers and men who rode home on horseback after the surrender. These accounts are not unusual. Ed Buford, on the other hand, was on a train through North Carolina after his exchange at City Point in March. He either fell off or jumped, and if he jumped, I don't blame him. But he had the option, while still a POW, to refuse exchange. That he took the exchange implies he was ready to go back into the fight. Far more men went home sans parole than went home with it, but a large part of that can be laid to units simply disbanding rather than surrender. Depending on where you lived, you might never have to give your parole, but most did eventually. Ed Buford's obit says he was paroled in May, and I believe it, even though it's not in his record. Like Larry, I'm taking these men on a case by case basis and consulting every scrap of data I can dig up on them. Sometimes all I have to go by are their service records and pension claims. Other times I have obits, brief bios, and such. The long trek home in the spring of 1865, no matter how it was accomplished, is a story worth telling. I would hasten to add that of the hundreds of Tennessee service records I've looked at, only a small percentage are listed as deserters, about the same percentage contain copies of paroles or some record of exchange in the spring of 1865. The remarks section will say whether they were paroled at Greensboro or Washington, Ga., or wherever, but a copy of the parole is very rare. Sometimes, in order to get a pension, you had to have men in your unit vouch that you were there at the end. The boards usually allowed those claims.

 

[prroh]

Ed Brady of the 28th Tenn consolidated was released from Camp Chase on May 12, 1865, and he was given a voucher for transport as far as Nashville. Yet Stanley F. Horn's book Tennessee's War contains an account of officers and men who rode home on horseback after the surrender. These accounts are not unusual. Ed Buford, on the other hand, was on a train through North Carolina after his exchange at City Point in March. He either fell off or jumped, and if he jumped, I don't blame him. But he had the option, while still a POW, to refuse exchange. That he took the exchange implies he was ready to go back into the fight. Far more men went home sans parole than went home with it, but a large part of that can be laid to units simply disbanding rather than surrender. Depending on where you lived, you might never have to give your parole, but most did eventually. Ed Buford's obit says he was paroled in May, and I believe it, even though it's not in his record. Like Larry, I'm taking these men on a case by case basis and consulting every scrap of data I can dig up on them. Sometimes all I have to go by are their service records and pension claims. Other times I have obits, brief bios, and such. The long trek home in the spring of 1865, no matter how it was accomplished, is a story worth telling. I would hasten to add that of the hundreds of Tennessee service records I've looked at, only a small percentage are listed as deserters, about the same percentage contain copies of paroles or some record of exchange in the spring of 1865. The remarks section will say whether they were paroled at Greensboro or Washington, Ga., or wherever, but a copy of the parole is very rare. Sometimes, in order to get a pension, you had to have men in your unit vouch that you were there at the end. The boards usually allowed those claims.

Thanks for fleshing out the myth that guys with no paroles were not deserters. Confederate records are a joke especially at the end which is what we are talking about. Guys with paroles saved them, even framed them as proof that they were loyal to the end.

 

[larry_cockerham]

Thanks for fleshing out the myth that guys with no paroles were not deserters. Confederate records are a joke especially at the end which is what we are talking about. Guys with paroles saved them, even framed them as proof that they were loyal to the end.

You must put your mind in the very short window of time Feb-May 1865 and realize that Confederate book keeping was on its last wobbly leg. The folks in Richmond were trying to figure out how to extracate themselves, not create a certificate for a guy who might not live to receive it. They were loading Jeff Davis' wagon for the trip to Georgia as it turned out. You seem overly excited about pointing out that there were numerous Confederate desertions. That's a fact. These were humans. It took a lot of balls to desert, not unlike firing at the enemy. If that decision was made consciously, it was one of fortitude, or simply the expression of an opinion that it was a better choice than trudging forward. Peer pressure, pride, and some sense of safety in numbers kept many of these men alive and together until receiving orders to disband. 4,000 men out of a once proud army; still there were numerous smilles on their faces as they headed west from Salisbury, N.C.

 

[prroh]

You must put your mind in the very short window of time Feb-May 1865 and realize that Confederate book keeping was on its last wobbly leg. QUOTE]

I understand that CSA bookkeeping, never very good, almost collapsed at the end and many records destroyed. As for deserters, I don't blame them, just object to the legends of the large numbers who stayed to the bitter end. The true believers in the remenant that was the AoT in March and April 1865 are either fools or heroes, not sure which. These few had endured so much, yet their sense of duty and honor brought them back. I do do not want to mix them up with the family myths of those who "started late then turned back" or left without a parole.

 

[PINCKNEYUSMCRET]

PRROH, they were soldiers who adhered to McCarthurs words "Duty, Honor, Country" long before he ever uttered them.

Pinckney

 

[larry_cockerham]

You must put your mind in the very short window of time Feb-May 1865 and realize that Confederate book keeping was on its last wobbly leg. QUOTE]

I understand that CSA bookkeeping, never very good, almost collapsed at the end and many records destroyed. As for deserters, I don't blame them, just object to the legends of the large numbers who stayed to the bitter end. The true believers in the remenant that was the AoT in March and April 1865 are either fools or heroes, not sure which. These few had endured so much, yet their sense of duty and honor brought them back. I do do not want to mix them up with the family myths of those who "started late then turned back" or left without a parole.

Please explain what you mean by "legends of the large numbers". As for the soldiers who were there at the surrender, they were honorable men still who had the posts to which they had been assigned. Most of them volunteered for this duty, or they, too, would have simply gone home. As for their link to paroles, they had none. I believe that is somewhat irrelevant. I hope you will agree. Read the words just posted by the old marine codger. They have meaning. He's been there. I can only speak for one, 'cause I carry his blood. I've grown to know the others pretty well by reading their records and notes. These men were not faint of heart. They were ready to kick Sherman's ***. They just needed a little more help and chose to work out the details when they found him. That didn't pan out, so it was time to go looking for something sweet smelling to embrace. Guns were turned into plowshares, which should have happened years earlier.

 

[prroh]

Please explain what you mean by "legends of the large numbers".

What I meant was if a census was taken of people descended from men of the AoT who were at Bentonville and the surrender, then Stewart would have had 40,000 rather than 4,000. Much like the people in Texas who claim it was a relative who grabbed Travellor's bridle and stopped Lee at the Wilderness. Seems the single SGT is claimed by relations of too many Sgts.

Many Irish Americans claim to be related to thousands of IRA members 1916-23, although the IRA rolls showed no more than 300 served at any time.

This is the what I mean by large numbers of family legends. I am sure there are also family legends in Maine claiming connection with the 20th. it is a very natural thing and will always be so.

 

[larry_cockerham]

A man who would claim the 20th Maine is a yankee. (not necessarily a bad thing). As for me, I claim (through my wife) the 15th Alabama. I doubt the number of folks who claim to have ancestors at the surrender of the AOT in North Carolina is all that large, though they left legends of descendants. The math just works that way. The reality is that very few folks living today can identify a civil war ancestor. They mostly don't know who their grandparents were, much less four generations or so back in time. As any genealogist will tell you, the majority of folks also don't care. That's a shame, but the truth. Membership in the SCV should number close to 2,000,000, yet it fluctuates at about 30,000. The SUVCW, which by all rights should be much larger, stays at around 6,000. As far as some idiot claiming something he can't prove, it happens every day.

 

[prroh]

A man who would claim the 20th Maine is a yankee. (not necessarily a bad thing).

As a person claiming connection with the IRA is likey to have Irish blood. I'm not taking sides.

All I am saying is that family history has to carefully screened. Legends of the hero ancestor often turn out that he never even served in the battle, sometimes even the war. Often it is simply confusion between the identies of two different people.

Have you ever read a book about what these deserters did when they went home? Were they shunned by the locals, especially veterans? I don't know of any such book but I think it would be interesting.

 

[larry_cockerham]

I highly respect your attitude and your ability to wade through my bs. (I've known Ole far too long.) No, I've seen no such book, though it would likely be frought with fiction. My guess would be that anyone at home in good enough condition to see that soldier come walking up the road would have been extremely happy. At the time we're discussing any kind of political authority (law) would have been extremely scarce in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina at least. I believe you could compare it to what happens in an NFL football game when there are just a few seconds on the clock that can be run down if everyone stands still, but the players and coaches go shake hands while the clock runs on the screen. When Lee hung up his sword, the rest of the army decided the game was over (except of course for my little corps of hard core AOT boys and Gen. Forrest down in AL). Even Forrest had been well aware the war was over after Nashville, if not sooner. What I'm trying to say it that at this particular time, not too much risk. I'm sure someone will correct me. It's happened before.

 

[prroh]

No, I've seen no such book, though it would likely be frought with fiction. .

Why?

The NPS staff say that , in the tourist season, they get several visitors every day who want to get information about ANV vets who surrendered with Lee, Gordon, Wilcox and Longstreet. The NPS has a book which lists every one of the 28,000+ (28,631?) paroles issued at Appomattox and the paroles issued at Farmville's hospitals and to Rooney Lee's 2,400 cavalry. Many of these visiters are saddened when they find out their veteran's name does not appear. In the months before the evacuation, the ANV was losing about a thousand men a week to desertion and about 10 -12,000 to straggling and desertion during the week-long retreat.

There were also about 10,000 prisoners taken during that fateful week in April as well.

Many exhausted and discouraged stragglers were simply left alone by the pursuing Federals. They were given paroles.

In NC, Sherman's unofficial truce gave Johnston's Army of the South, time to rest and get a few square meals. Many stragglers and even some furloghed men "who started late" might also have rejoined their colors. Any idea as to the number of AoT members who were issued paroles? Was the number greater than those present at Bentonville, a few weeks before?

 

[larry_cockerham]

I'd be surprised if there were any records at all from this time and place aside from what Johnston's staff turned in. You must remember that he was sending data to empty offices for the most part. Richmond was a yankee town once again as far as beauracy was concerned. Sorry I'm not much help; I just don't think the info is there.

 

[larry_cockerham]

Back to northwestern Alabama for a moment

March 22, 1865

Union cavalry, 14,500 men, [accounts vary from 13-14k) under command of Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson, departed Waterloo, on the Tennessee River, moving in the direction of Central Alabama intending to destroy the arsenal and supplies at Selma. According to Gene Cantrell from official records , Upton's division moved via Barton's Station, Russellville, Mt Hope, and Jasper, to Elyton. [Elyton is now known as Birmingham] Long's division marched by the way of Cherokee Station, Frankford, Russellville, crossed Bear Creek on the Tuscaloosa road, thence by Thorn Hill and Jasper to Elyton. McCook pursued the same route to the crossing of Bear Creek, and thence taking the Tuscaloosa road to Eldridge, then to Jasper and on to Elyton.