Circa1865

Gen. Robert E. Lee authorized leaflets sent to his adversaries encouraging desertions to his lines, parole and safe passage northward – thus preventing the soldier from being conscripted at home. Forced to draft unwilling northern men which produced riots, Lincoln found that greenback bounty money lured many but created another problem in the form of paid substitutes and bounty-jumping.

Gen. Grant admitted in late 1864 of receiving perhaps one effective soldier out of five sent, and among whom existed many bounty-jumpers seeking another opportunity to desert and reenlist in another State for its bounty.

Deserters and Bounty Jumpers

“A scrutiny of Union desertion by States reveals the largest actual numbers from New York with 44,913; from Pennsylvania with 24,050; from Ohio with 18,354; from New Jersey with the startling figure of 8,468; and from little Rhode Island with 1,384 to its credit.

The figures for several of the Border States prove interesting: notably, Maryland which produced 5,328 deserters; Tennessee which furnished 3,690; Kentucky which yielded 7,227; and Arkansas, which contributed 2,245. Likewise, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa, where there was considerable disaffection with the war, rank relatively high in desertions in proportion to their population.

Usually, the recorded statements of specific instances of desertion, whether in Union of Confederate reports, show the slipping away of individuals or of small groups, varying from five to sixteen or twenty. At Pittsburgh, complaint was made that more than 300 men from two Pennsylvania regiments had absented themselves since their muster; from an Illinois regiment at Cairo, Illinois more than 700 men had deserted; 347 soldiers succeeded in making their escape from another Illinois regiment places at Memphis.

There were also cases of considerable bodies of soldiers departing. One conspicuous case savored of open mutiny as some 400 draftees departed from the forts around Washington on the 29^th of August 1864. They continued in a body with arms until they had secured civilian clothes, and then scattered in all directions.

A Confederate officer reported in January 1863 that he had gathered from the army opposing him some 2,000 deserters, with many others were seeking an opportunity to surrender in order to be paroled.”

(Desertions During the Civil War. Ella Lonn. University of Nebraska Press, 1998, pg. 152-153. (original American Historical Association, 1928)