Union Desertion
In view of the conditions which prevailed in the war department and in the Union army, it is not surprising that desertion was a common fault. Even so, the actual extent of it, shown in official reports, comes as a distinct shock. Though the determination of the full number is a bit complicated, the total would have been over 200,000. From New York there were 44,913 deserters according to the records; from Pennsylvania, 24,050; from Ohio, 18,354. The daily hardships of war, deficiency in arms, forced marches sometimes made straggling a necessary for less vigorous men), thirst, suffocating heat, disease, delay in pay, solicitude for family, impatience at the monotony and futility of inactive service, and (though this was not the leading cause) panic on the eve of battle—these were some of the conditioning factors that produced desertion. Many men absented themselves merely through unfamiliarity with military discipline or through the feeling that they should be "restrained by no other legal requirement than those of civil law governing a free people"; and such was a general attitude that desertion was often regarded "more as a refusal… to ratify a contract than as the commission of a grave crime."
The sense of war weariness, the lack of confidence in commanders, and the discouragement of defeat tended to lower morale of the Union army and to increase desertions. General Hooker estimated in 1863 that 85,000 officers and men had deserted from the Army of the Potomac, while it was stated in December of 1862 that no less than 180,000 of the soldiers listed on the Union muster roll were absent, with or without leave. Abuse of leave or furlough privilege was one of the chief means of desertion. Other methods were: slipping to the rear during a battle, inviting capture by the enemy (a method by which honorable service could be claimed), straggling, taking French leave when on picket duty, pretending to be engaged in repairing a telegraph line, et cetera. Some deserters went over to enemy not as captives but as soldiers; others lived in a wild state on the frontier; some turned outlaw or went to Canada; some boldly appeared at home; in some cases deserter gangs, as in western Pennsylvania, formed bandit groups.
To suppress desertion the extreme penalty of death was at times applied, especially after 1863; but this meant no more than the selection of a few men as public examples out of many thousands equally guilty. The commoner method was to make public appeals to deserters, promising pardon in case of voluntary return with dire threats to those who failed to return. That desertion did not prevent a man posing after the war as an honorable soldier is evident by a study of pension records. The laws required honorable discharge as a requisite for a pension; but in the case of those charged with desertion, Congress passed numerous private and special acts "correcting" the military record.
J.G. Randall, David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction pp. 329-331.
Also, see post 337