Browse Items (46 total)

At the Beginning of the Civil War, the Confederate States of America could hardly have foreseen the enormous problem that desertion in its army would have become. Amid the initial enthusiasm following the outbreak of the conflict, the rush of…

That the Confederate soldier has no superior in the annals of war is an article of the American Creed. His accomplishments against overwhelming odds, through four years of heroic suffering, are his monument. Magnificent in his forbearance and his…

Several scholars have determined that western North Carolina men, like Sergeant Wyatt, deserted in larger numbers than their compatriots across the state did. Richard Reid’s 1981 study found a desertion rate of 16 percent for western North…

Drawing from the experiences of 3,126 enlisted men from North Carolina who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, the author focuses on the determinants of desertion. Men deserted because their identity as Southerners was eroded by an emergent…

A plea for supplies

Lt. Col. S. H. Walkup to Gov. Zebulon Vance, October 11, 1862, in the Governors Papers, North Carolina State Archives.

Camp Near Winchester Va. Octr 11th, 1862.

Govr. Z. B. Vance,

I lay before you for your…

A civil war at home: Treatment of Unionists

W. H. Younce, The Adventures of a Conscript (Cincinnati: The Editor Pub. Co., 1901), pp. 57–62.

At home again.

Our purpose was to try to reach my father’s home that night, but about the middle…

"They hung my son by the limb of a tree"

Drawing of a Civil War deserter being hanged from a tree.

A major problem that faced both armies during the Civil war was desertion. As the conflict dragged on into a protracted war of attrition, the loss of men through absenteeism struck hardest at the South. Before the end of 1861 it had become a problem…

It gets almost painful to go to Father’s we differ so widely. He it is true says nothing personal or unhandsome, but he censures so sweepingly every thing that SC does. Mama & Susan do go on so about the “Flag. Who cares for the old striped rag…

Yesterday to my great surprise as I was standing in the Store Room a finely dressed Military looking old gentleman, tho in citizen's clothes, with beard & moustache as white as snow, came walking across the back yard having driven in to the back gate…