Often, researching a family member's Civil War military service can be a double-edged sword. Many researchers have the expectation that their ancestors' military service was honorable-- highlighted by famous battles, displays of courage under fire, and medals earned. Unfortunately, what some genealogists find is that their ancestors' military service was not as courageous and honorable as stories passed from generation to generation would have them believe. Although many love to romanticize the American Civil War, much happened that soldiers would not brag about to their families. Army life was hard, and desertion, insubordination, cowardice under fire, theft, murder, and rape were not uncommon. Evidence of such behavior in the Union army can be found in entry 15, Court-Martial Case Files, 1809-1894, Record Group 153, Records of the Judge Advocate General (Army). This series includes proceedings of general courts-martial, courts of inquiry, and military commissions. A general court-martial is the highest military tribunal convened to try violations of military law. A court of inquiry is an investigative body that lacks the power to impose punishments. And military commissions are special courts established under martial law for the investigation and trial of private citizens.

When researching a soldier who served in the Union army, begin with his compiled military service record. These carded records often mention a crime such as desertion or absence without leave as well as reference to a corresponding general order, special order, or general court-martial order. Orders are arranged by type, year, and then number. Printed copies of general orders and special orders can be found in Record Group 94, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780's-1917. General court martial orders are located in Record Group 153, Records of the Judge Advocate General (Army). These orders provide basic information such as the date, location of the trial, charge(s) brought against the accused, finding of the court, and sentence. The order also specifies whether the sentence was approved or disapproved by a higher authority.

To identify proceedings of a specific court-martial, researchers need to consult registers reproduced on National Archives Microfilm Publication M1105, Registers of the Records of the Proceedings of the U.S. Army General Courts-Martial, 1809-1890. The index shows the name of the accused, his rank, regiment, company, the president of the court, the judge advocate, and when and where the court convened. There are six indexes that cover the period 1861 to 1865. The case files include records of general courts-martial, courts of inquiry, and military commissions. Included are documents describing the organization and personnel of the courts; charges and specifications; pleas and arraignments of the defendants; papers and exhibits submitted for the consideration of the courts; proceedings, findings, and sentences of the courts; reports of the reviewing authorities; statement of action by the secretary of war and the President; and related correspondence. Case files are arranged by an alphanumeric filing scheme. For 1861-1865, court-martial case file numbers begin with II and run through OO (NN751 for example).

A series of court-martial case files (1861-1865) that were lost during the Civil War were later recovered by the Judge Advocate General in the early 1890s. These files are arranged numerically and are not included in the registers reproduced on microfilm publication M1105. The only index to this series is in the Old Military and Civil Records section of the National Archives. The index is arranged alphabetically by surname. The name index is followed by brief descriptions of each case file including case number; the individual's name, rank, and unit; the trial date; charges; and a summary of findings.

Desertion is a very common charge found in Civil War court-martial case files. Many of these cases are brief and provide little testimony. There are examples, however, of cases where the finding of the court resulted in a flurry of activity, including new information being brought to light after the trial ended. A good example is the case of 2d Lt. Charles Conzet, Company B, 123d Illinois Infantry Regiment. Lieutenant Conzet deserted on January 9, 1863, was later captured in Illinois, and returned to his unit on February 21, 1863.(1) Conzet was tried and convicted of desertion and sentenced "to be stripped of his badges of office, and shot until he is dead, with musketry." Both the commanders of the division and the Department of the Cumberland approved the sentence and forwarded it to the President of the United States for his approval.

After the trial, thirteen officers of the 123d Illinois, including the regimental and company commanders, signed a letter addressed to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, requesting that Lt. Conzet's sentence be commuted. The officers expressed concern that the lieutenant was "induced to abandon his post by letters from his wife begging him to come home and relieve her from her destitute condition, representing to him that the community in which she lived was opposed to the war, and would do nothing to relieve her necessities because her husband was in the Army." His wife was in financial need, and the lieutenant had not received any pay for his five months of service in the army. The officers requested that the secretary of war commute his sentence to "reduction to the ranks with forfeiture of all pay and allowance." The officers noted that Lieutenant Conzet requested to "be allowed to return to his company so that he may yet prove himself to be a man." On September 24, 1864, President Lincoln wrote, "Let the prisoner be ordered from confinement and dishonorably dismissed [from] the service of the United States."(2) Second Lt. Charles Conzet was dishonorably dismissed two days later under War Department Special Order No. 321.(3)

Insubordination is another charge commonly found in court-martial case files. Pvt. Patrick Delaney of Company D, Third Regiment, New York Artillery was charged with "conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline." Two specifications clarified the charge. The first notes that the private violently assaulted 1st Lt. Paul Buchmeyer of Battery F, Third New York Artillery, by kicking and striking him. The second states that Private Delaney knew Buchmeyer to be an officer since the lieutenant identified himself as such. Delaney responded, "that he did not care a Goddamn if he was an officer." The court met on February 16, 1863, at New Berne, North Carolina. In response to the first question of the court regarding being struck, Lieutenant Buchmeyer answered, "First time he didn't strike me hard enough to knock me down, then I knocked him down. He had a partner with him. The partner knocked me down & I got up and knocked the other man down. The other man had a woman's dress. I knew him by his hair." As to the next question, "Did they appear to be under the influence of liquor?" the lieutenant responded, "Yes, I thought they had enough to make them ugly." There was no further mention of the second man in the dress in any of the testimony. Delaney was found guilty of both charges and sentenced to one year imprisonment at hard labor with a twenty-four-pound ball and chain.(4)

Although the vast majority of courts-martial relate to enlisted men, there are several cases that pertain to general officers. One such case involves James G. Spears, who helped organize the First Tennessee (Union) Infantry in 1861 and became its lieutenant colonel. Spears was later placed in command of a brigade in the Army of the Ohio and attained the rank of brigadier general. He was a slave-owning Unionist from Tennessee and believed the Emancipation Proclamation was illegal and unconstitutional and that only states could change slave laws. In February of 1864, General Spears was brought to trial in Knoxville, Tennessee, on charges including "using disloyal language."(5)

Recommended Reading: Desertion during the Civil War (251 pages) (University of Nebraska Press). Description: 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. Continued below...

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. About the Author: Ella Lonn (1879–1962) was a professor at Goucher College and the author of six histories of the South and the Civil War.

 

Union Army Desertions (Union Deserters Branch): O.R., Series 3, Vol. 5, p. 758

Coupled with problems such as speculation, food and clothing shortages, conscription, taxation, and a pervasive focus on the protection of local interests, desertion started as a military problem and spilled over into the civilian world. Fostered by a military culture that treated ‘absenteeism leniently’ early in the war, desertion steadily increased and by 1863 reached epidemic proportions. A Union policy that permitted Confederate deserters to swear allegiance to the Union and then return home encouraged desertion. Equally important in persuading men to desert was the direct appeal from loved ones on the home front--letters from wives begging soldiers to come home for harvests, births, and hardships. By 1864, deserter bands infested some portion of every Confederate state. Preying on the civilian population, many of these bands--commonly referred to as irregular or guerrilla units--frustrated virtually every effort to subdue them. Ultimately, desertion not only depleted the Confederate army but also undermined civilian morale. By examining desertion, Weitz assesses how deteriorating southern civilian morale and growing unwillingness to contribute goods and services to the war led to defeat. 

 

Recommended Reading: No Soap, No Pay, Diarrhea, Dysentery & Desertion: A Composite Diary of the Last 16 Months of the Confederacy from 1864 to 1865. Description: No Soap, No Pay, Diarrhea, Dysentery & Desertion is a groundbreaking study of life during the final sixteen months of the Confederacy. Civil War studies normally focus on military battles, campaigns, generals, and politicians, with the common Confederate soldier and Southern civilians receiving only token mention. Using personal accounts from more than two hundred seventy soldiers, farmers, clerks, surgeons, sailors, chaplains, farm girls, nurses, nuns, merchants, teachers and wives, author Jeff Toalson has created a compilation that is remarkable in its simplicity and stunning in its scope. Continued below...

These soldiers and civilians wrote remarkable letters and kept astonishing diaries and journals. They discussed disease, slavery, inflation, religion, desertion, blockade running, and their never-ending hope that the war would be over before their loved ones died. As in all wars, these are the people who suffer the most—and glory is hard to find amid lice, dysentery, starvation, and death.

A significant contribution to Civil War literature, No Soap, No Pay, Diarrhea, Dysentery & Desertion will open vistas to a side of the war with which most are only mildly familiar. The words of these individuals are an honest, powerful, and poetic portrayal of the war’s effect on their lives.

 

Recommended Reading: Galvanized Yankees on the Upper Missouri: The Face of Loyalty, by Michèle Butts (Hardcover: 320 pages) (University Press of Colorado). Description: Only a handful of historians have explored the unique nature of the Galvanized Yankees—Confederate prisoners of war permitted to enlist in the Union army—and the role they played in the West during the Civil War. Rarer still are detailed studies of individual regiments. Michèle Tucker Butts sheds welcome light on the triumphs and travails of one such unit, the First United States Volunteers and their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dimon. Continued below...

 

Recommended Reading: They Went into the Fight Cheering: Confederate Conscription in North Carolina. Description: They Went Into The Fight Cheering focuses on the inner workings of conscription and its related enforcement in North Carolina. It is meticulously researched and presents the often overlooked aspect of troop procurement by the Confederacy in North Carolina as initial enlistment periods expired. The discussion of conscription (and desertion) in this book does not besmirch the honor of southern soldiers. Continued below…

Hilderman's book, They Went into the Fight Cheering, is a fascinating read on the North Carolinian and conscription during the War Between the States. Much has been written on the New York City draft riots and on the bounty jumpers of the north, but here is a factual and well documented history of how North Carolina, a late secession state, grappled with the effects of compulsory military service. Hilderman draws from a vast resource – the soldiers’ actual letters – to enable the reader to experience the war from the soldier's perspective. Be they volunteers or conscripts, after reading this book, there should be no question as to the bravery of the Tar Heel State’s soldiers. Hailed by many and criticized by others, it is, however a well written and balanced work. It is also a refreshing study that brings balance to the immense volumes that have previously presented history as either black or white. They Went into the Fight Cheering is a welcome addition to personal, school and community library Civil War and North Carolina history collections.