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[7th Mississippi Infantry]

As has been said, seeing AWOL on an official Civil War service card is not uncommon.
That does not mean your ancestor/relative necessarily "ran away" from anything.

Naturally, official record keeping was not the best back then.
It was decent for the era ... but still very limited in scope.

Not all, but many men had formal permission to be absent.
But often, the clerks recording muster rolls had no way of knowing who had been granted leave and who had not.

 

[C. Cash]

You have to remember. In Tenn. their homes were under occupation and threat. Their stock, goods and livelihood taken and farms and fences burned. Families were starving. Alot of soldiers probably had to find out what was happening or go mad with worry. I don't judge these as cowardice at all where they returned.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

Imagine a man receiving this letter?

"....I never saw elsewhere such a quantity and variety of castaways. I picked up a beautifully bound prayer- book; a bawdy book of which the half page I read before I knew what it was is branded in my memory to this day; even a letter from a wife telling her husband how in her poverty she had finally succumbed to the landlord who had pressed her for rent and would not be otherwise appeased. Think of throwing away a letter like that without even tearing off the address; even I, a stranger, kept it till I could burn it with the book. I threw things away, too, on that march, more and more of them, till when we got to Gettysburg I had only a haversack, a rubber blanket and a canteen left, of all the luxuries I had gathered in the winter camp."

Source: The Little Fifer's War Diary

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

You have to remember. In Tenn. their homes were under occupation and threat. Their stock, goods and livelihood taken and farms and fences burned. Alot of them probably had to find out what was happening or go mad with worry. I don't judge these as cowardice at all where they returned.

Kind of the same with my GG Grandfather.
He was much older than a front-line soldier.

He was an old man of 42 years and a NCO in the local state troops.
Much like today's reserve/guard units.

Long story short, he was stationed almost 150 miles from his home on the perimeter of 1862 Vicksburg.
( Snyder's Bluff on the Yazoo River).

The feared assaults never came that month, and the older men and boys were eventually sent home.
Seems my GG Grandfather left twice during his "deployment" to return home.
But he always came back to his regiment.

It also seems he would leave to check on his wife and four year old son.
His four year old kid was my G Grandfather.

So ... if not for his leave ... approved or not, I might not be here today.

 

[J. D. Stevens]

as dad says, "it is what it is".

I have found a dozen or so direct and collateral ancestors who served in both the USA and CSA. Only one rose above the rank of private. He died of consumption about 3 months after being promoted to corporal. All were heroes to me.

 

[C. Cash]

My ggGrandfather JM Cash went Awol from the Confederate 5th TN Cav(McKenzie's) during the Union occupation of Chattanooga, following his Company Commander as he formed Welcker's TN State Battn. Maybe he thought he could be near his family and still fight. Then, Welcker's got routed and mostly captured at Chattanooga/Missionary Ridge. My JM Cash made it back to the 5th TN Cav. with whom he served for the remainder of the War, going through the Atlanta Campaign anf fighting Sherman on his March to the Sea. One of the few original members who were on the ending roster at Bentonville.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

died of consumption

Sadly, such was a common cause of more deaths than actual battle related wounds.