Papers on Desertion

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Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Master of Arts
History
May 29, 2007
Blacksburg, Virginia
Copyright 2007, Jack Lawrence Atkins

"It Is Useless to Conceal the Truth Any Longer": Desertion of Virginia Soldiers From the Confederate Army
Jack Lawrence Atkins

Abstract
This study of Virginia desertion differs from other desertion studies in several respects. The statistical analysis of the patterns of desertion within the army is one of the most unique characteristics of this study. Several other scholars have attempted to track desertion across the Confederacy, but limited sources restricted their studies. By compiling data from compiled service records, this thesis attempts a comprehensive study of all Virginia's Confederate soldiers. The first chapter examines the patterns of desertion both across the state and in Virginia's infantry, cavalry, and artillery regiments. This chapter has three specific aims. First, calculates how many soldiers deserted from Virginia's Confederate units during the Civil War. Uncovering when these men left the army, and the parts the state from which they hailed, will lay the foundation for a careful evaluation of what caused desertion and its consequences for the army.
The second chapter examines the causes of desertion among Virginia troops. No single reason was responsible for such desertion. Owing to the risks deserting carried, when a soldier left the army he did so for varied and intensely personal reasons. This chapter examines how conscription, concerns about home and family, morale and disaffection, and an ineffective policy for punishment, all combined to increase desertion from Virginia units. The conclusions look at the effects of desertion on the Confederate military's ability to wage an effective war against the Union and how desertion affected the civilians behind the lines. Obviously, desertion drained the army of manpower it could not afford to loose. In what other ways did its effects manifest themselves? Central to this aspect of the thesis will be the opinions of Confederate military leaders. What impact did they believe desertion was having on the army? By answering these questions, we can begin to learn desertion's impact on the Confederacy.

https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/79bb9b0a-2334-4d81-8224-241c1f58b183/content

https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/6a8603a2-b1ca-4581-a4af-753f31a784a8/content

https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/e32a0233-7627-4b5e-8330-4bc202d15ab9/content

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Smithfield Review
Montgomery County Branch Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities
Pocahontas Press, Inc.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of History
1998

Desertion and Unionism in Floyd County, Virginia, 1861-1865
Paul Randolph Dotson, Jr.

In Floyd County, Virginia, the Civil War generated an extreme example of divided loyalties and community division in the Confederacy. The county was the home of a strong and growing pro-Union sentiment during the war, and to the dismay of Confederate leaders in Richmond, it also became a haven for deserters. Almost a fourth of Floyd's soldiers deserted their units and returned to hideout in the mountains around their homes. This article examines desertion and Unionism in Floyd, elements that both reflected and heightened division, and suggests that mounting desertion and Unionism were crucial elements in transforming the community's initial support for the Confederacy into rampant disdain for it.

https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/6f016bf8-e745-4afa-aafe-a021f8c48f6a/content

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East Texas Historical Association
The East Texas Historical Journal
Volume 52 Issue 1 Article 8
3-2014

"So Lost to Honor;" The Mass Desertion of the Camp Ford Guard - July 20, 1864
Vicki Betts

This Article has been accepted for inclusion in the East Texas Historical Journal by an authorized editor of ETHA and SFA. This Article is brought to you free and open access by the Journals at SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected].

The Austin, Texas, newspaper printed a "special correspondence" from Tyler, dated July 29, 1864:
Editor Gazette-About a week ago 150 men of Col. Anderson's Regiment, who were guarding the Federal prisoners near here, organized under a Lieutenant, and left. Their horses had come in from grazing the day before, and they are well-armed and mounted. Col. Anderson endeavored to overtake them with a small force, and induce or compel them to return, but was unable to overtake them. They deserted in open day, fell into line at the sound of the trumpet, and are by this time on the frontier, I presume. For a day or two the Federals were very insecurely guarded and some apprehensions were felt that they would escape and do much damage, but all is safe now. What should be the punishment for men so lost to honor as to desert their post, leaving 3000 or 4000 miscreants almost unguarded in the heart of the country, thus endangering the lives and property of the whole country to pillage and slaughter?

https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2712&context=ethj

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University of Massachusetts Boston
ScholarWorks at UMass Boston
Graduate Masters Theses
Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses
5-31-2017

Expendable: Eight Soldiers From Massachusetts Regiments Executed For Desertion During the United States Civil War
Stephen F. Ragon
University of Massachusetts Boston

This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses at ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © 2017 by Stephen F. Ragon All rights reserved

ABSTRACT
The written history of the United States Civil War provides limited analysis on the topic of desertion and execution for desertion in the Army of the Potomac. The specific numbers involved are well documented. With the exception of occasional narratives on the executions themselves, there is no examination of the human decisions taken, beginning with the soldier's choice to desert. In addition, while the military court-martial trial was rigid in its structure and process, it allowed for discretion in the sentencing phase. Human choice exerted its greatest influence in the aftermath of the trial as the sentence was reviewed up through the military chain of command. Ultimately, the case would arrive at the desk of President Abraham Lincoln; the final arbitrator of life or death. Fortunately for the convicted, they had a compassionate Commander in Chief and President Lincoln personally intervened in hundreds of their cases. There were over 200,000 incidents of desertion from the Union armies during the Civil War. Desertion and other crimes resulted in 75,961 court-martials and 1,883 soldiers were sentenced to be executed. A total of 265 men were executed and 147 of those were for desertion. This paper provides a micro history of eight soldiers from Massachusetts regiments executed for desertion. They are contrasted against seven soldiers from Massachusetts regiments pardoned for the same capital crime of desertion. Extrapolating the data elements of the accused, along with their trial testimonies, allows for the identification of three major factors that influenced whether a soldier who deserted was executed or pardoned. A second contribution to the historical record on the Civil War is the identification of the personal data elements found in these men's lives. By consolidating these elements, such as place of birth, a profile of the typical deserter emerges. This deserter profile can be contrasted against a historically codified profile of a typical Union soldier. Ultimately, while these deserters were denigrated for their crime of desertion, they deserve to have their stories heard. In doing so, it is possible to identify who these men really were and what their role was in the United States Civil War.

https://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1437&context=masters_theses

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CIVIL WAR
One attempt was made to determine the desertion rate during the Gettysburg campaign. The Federal Army's total numbers of deserters for Jun and Jul, 1863, as reported by the Provost Marshal General, were 3,956 and 5,540, respectively. A breakdown for the 5,540 revealed that the largest number of deserters were New York state volunteers (1,175). "General hospitals" was the second largest category - 1,073 (Provost Marshal General's Report, cited below, pp. 232-33).

The Army of the Potomac's strength at Gettysburg was about 80,000 (Livermore, p. 102). The aggregate strength of the Federal Army in Jul has not been computed, but its strength as of 1 Jan 1863 is known - 918,121 (PMG, p. 102). By the time of the Gettysburg campaign, that figure had shrunk, because men who had enlisted for two years in 1861 or for nine months in Aug 1862 were being released (Lerwill, pp. 73-74). In the middle of 1863 the Federals were probably losing men to desertion at the rate of about 0.6% a month or 7-8% annually.

The number of deserters per month, 1863 to 1865, averaged 5,500, with the greatest number deserting (or, at least, being reported as having deserted) in Oct 1864 as 10,692 (Lonn, pp. 151-52). For the entire war, the Provost Marshal General reported 278,644 desertions, but added:

This number is much too large. Many of those reported as deserters are not so in reality, but are men who became unavoidably absent from their commands by falling sick on the march; being injured in action without the knowledge of their officers; and reported "missing, and subsequently deserted"; and by intentionally or unintentionally overstaying their furloughs, &c., (#p. 230).

Provost Marshal General James B. Fry estimated that about 201,000 were actual deserters (p. 89). Livermore (p. 48) states that the total number of deserters during the war was 125,000, whereas Chanal (p. 66) says 190,045 and Phisterer (p.67) says 199,045. The general ratio for all volunteers was 62.51 desertions per thousand (Lonn p. 149).

The total number of enlistments during the war was about 2.8 million (Heitman p. 285), but probably at least half a million were reenlistments (Livermore, p. 1).

Thus, it seems that the number of men who deserted during the war was approximately 7.1% (200,000 divided by 2.8 million).

To illustrate the uneasiness with which one should accept any Civil War desertion statistics, the 7% figure should be compared with the following two documents.

1. Opposite p. 276 of the 1914 War Dept Annual Report, Vol. I, appears a desertion rate chart covering 1830 to 1914. It is based upon the total number of enlistment contracts in force each year. The chart shows that Civil War desertion rates were as follows:

1861 13.7%
1862 16.0%
1863 16.0%
1864 28.0%
1865 45.0%

No explanation is given of these rates. Did they pertain only to Regular Army contracts?

2. General Samuel B. Holabird in "Some Considerations Respecting Desertion in the Army," Ordnance Notes No. 232, 20 Nov 1882 (UF7.A15), said: "In the Civil War [men] deserted by the hundred thousand. Of an army of one hundred thousand men, after a campaign had progressed somewhat, not much more than from thirty to fifty percent, could be got into line of battle."

Estimates of the total number of men enlisted into the Confederate Army range from 600,000 to 1,500,000, with one million near the median (Livermore p. 40). The number of CSA deserters was 82,922, according to the same source (p. 48), who also cites the Jan 1863 CSA strength as 446,622, of which about 70,000 fought at Gettysburg (pp. 45 & 103).

Sources:

Chanal, Francois Victor Adolphe de. The American Army in the War of Secession. Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Spooner, 1894. E491.C4513.

Heitman, Francis B. Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army.... Vol. 2. Wash, DC: GPO 1903. U11.U5.H8.

Lerwill, Leonard L. The Personnel Replacement System in the United States Army: DA Pam 20-211, dated Aug 1954. MilPub-Pam.

Livermore, Thomas L. Numbers & Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-65. Bloomington, IN: IN U, 1957. E491.L78.

Lonn, Ella. Desertion During the Civil War. NY: Century, 1928. E468.L86.

Phisterer, Frederick. Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States. NY: Scribner, 1883. E491.P45.

U.S. War Dept. Provost Marshal General. Report of the Provost Marshal General. Wash, DC: GPO, 1866. E491.M53.

https://www.armyheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/ref-bibs/subjects/Military%20Service/Desertion/Desertion%20Statistics.pdf

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Journal Article
INCONSTANT REBELS: DESERTION OF NORTH CAROLINA TROOPS IN THE CIVIL WAR
Richard Bardolph
The North Carolina Historical Review
Vol. 41, No. 2 (April, 1964), pp. 163-189
North Carolina Office of Archives and History

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23517187

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

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Journal Article
Confederate Dilemma: North Carolina Troops and the Deserter Problem: Part I
Richard Bardolph
The North Carolina Historical Review
Vol. 66, No. 1 (JANUARY 1989), pp. 61-86
North Carolina Office of Archives and History

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23520747

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[Story]

For those unfamiliar with her work, one of the foundation books on this topic

Desertion during the Civil War: Lonn, Ella, Blair, William: 9780803279759: Amazon.com: Books

Desertion during the Civil War [Lonn, Ella, Blair, William] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Desertion during the Civil War

www.amazon.com

Desertion during the Civil War, originally published in 1928, remains the only book-length treatment of its subject. Ella Lonn examines the causes and consequences of desertion from both the Northern and Southern armies. Drawing on official war records, she notes that one in seven enlisted Union soldiers and one in nine Confederate soldiers deserted.

Lonn discusses many reasons for desertion common to both armies, among them lack of such necessities as food, clothing, and equipment; weariness and discouragement; noncommitment and resentment of coercion; and worry about loved ones at home. Some Confederate deserters turned outlaw, joining ruffian bands in the South. Peculiar to the North was the evil of bounty-jumping. Captured deserters generally were not shot or hanged because manpower was so precious. Moving beyond means of dealing with absconders, Lonn considers the effects of their action. Absenteeism from the ranks cost the North victories and prolonged the war even as the South was increasingly hurt by defections. This book makes vivid a human phenomenon produced by a tragic time.

 

[USS ALASKA]

To go with post #7...

Journal Article
Confederate Dilemma: North Carolina Troops and the Deserter Problem: Part II
Richard Bardolph
The North Carolina Historical Review
Vol. 66, No. 2 (APRIL 1989), pp. 179-210
North Carolina Office of Archives and History

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23520673

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

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Journal Article
"The Grave and Scandalous Evil Infected to Your People": The Erosion of Confederate Loyalty in Floyd County, Virginia
Rand Dotson
The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
Vol. 108, No. 4 (2000), pp. 393-434
Virginia Historical Society

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4249872

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

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Journal Article
UNDERSTANDING THE DESERTION OF SOUTH CAROLINIAN SOLDIERS DURING THE FINAL YEARS OF THE CONFEDERACY
PATRICK J. DOYLE
The Historical Journal
Vol. 56, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER 2013), pp. 657-679
Cambridge University Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24529089

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

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Journal Article
A Test Case of the "Crying Evil": Desertion among North Carolina Troops during the Civil War
Richard Reid
The North Carolina Historical Review
Vol. 58, No. 3 (July, 1981), pp. 234-262
North Carolina Office of Archives and History

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23534960

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

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Florida Historical Quarterly
Volume 48
Number 3
Article 5
1969

Deprivation, Disaffection, and Desertion in Confederate Florida
John F. Reiger

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Florida Historical Quarterly by an authorized editor of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected].

THE FEDERAL BLOCKADE, departure of most breadwinners for the military, removal of large quantities of food, clothing, and supplies for troops on every southern battlefront, disregard of desperate appeals of Confederate and state officials urging the planting of food rather than money crops, and great speculation, caused widespread suffering for most Florida families during the Civil War. Many Floridians consistently ignored the advice of Confederate political and military officials. There appeared to be a propensity on the part of too large a percentage of the people to pursue a course clearly contrary to the best interests of the South and Florida. This matter of planter indifference to both the Confederate war effort and the general well-being of Floridians reached ominous proportions.

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3153&context=fhq

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[USS ALASKA]

Desertion as Localism: Army Unit Solidarity and Group Norms in the U.S. Civil War
Peter S. Bearman
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Social Forces, Vol. 70, No. 2 (Dec., 1991), pp. 321-342
Oxford University Press

Abstract
Drawing from the experiences of 3,126 enlisted men from North Carolina who fought for the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War, this article focuses on the determinants of desertion. I argue that men deserted because their identity as Southerners was eroded by an emergent localism, sustained and organized within the Confederate army. Desertion rates were highest in companies that evidenced a high degree of local homogeneity - company solidarity thus bred rather than reduced desertion rates. There is no support for any of the historical models of desertion that search for individual-level determinants, such as social class, occupation, status, family structure, age, or time of enlistment. Finally, contextual variables seem to be weak proxies for the central variable accounting for desertion - the emergence of a localist identity.

"Mother there is soldiers deserting every day & I hope that they will continue to desert until this war is ended." Private T.W. Gaither, April 3, 1863 (Hardy n.d.)

https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-degw-j247/download

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[USS ALASKA]

A paper to go with @DBF 's thread of https://civilwartalk.com/threads/a-tuesday-tea-with-the-ladies-of-salisbury-north-carolina.212998/

Domestic Discontent and Battlefield Desertion: Evidence From the Southern Bread Riots
Connor Huff - Rice University / Emily Myers - Duke University / Livia Schubiger - University of Oxford
January 16, 2025

Abstract
How does domestic discontent affect combatants' battlefield behavior? Prior research highlights how unit characteristics and battlefield dynamics shape soldiers' commitment to fight, yet has paid little attention to the impacts of the costs of war at home. Weargue that visible signals of domestic discontent—in the form of protests and riots—can increase soldiers' expectations of the costs of continued fighting and reduce the social benefits of remaining a combatant. These mechanisms increase the likelihood of desertion. To test this, we analyze the Southern Bread Riots in Confederate Georgia, using newly compiled data on over 80,000 soldiers and a difference-in-differences design. We show that Confederate soldiers from counties that experienced riots deserted at higher rates, particularly in poorer counties where the costs of war were arguably most salient. The paper shows how visible displays of a conflict's domestic costs can play a crucial role in shaping soldiers' willingness to fight.

Domestic Discontent and Battlefield Desertion: Evidence from the Southern Bread Riots

How does domestic discontent affect combatants' battlefield behavior? Previous research demonstrates how unit characteristics and battlefield dynamics affect in

papers.ssrn.com

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