From a letter written by one Private Thomas Warrick of Alabama, cited in The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy by Bell Irvin Wiley:
I saw a site today that made me feel mity Bad I saw a man shot for deserting there was twenty fore Guns shot at him thay shot him all to pease … he went home and thay Brote him Back and then he went home again and so they shot him for that Martha it was one site that I did hate to see it But I could not helpe my self I had to do Jest as thay sed for me to doo.
This unknown soldier shot “all to pease” had just run afoul of Gen. Braxton Bragg‘s draconian anti-desertion policy meant to crack down on soldiers going AWOL for casual leave, often to help the families they had left behind keep up the farm.
As Wiley points out, our letter-writer Private Warrick was himself planning to do just that.
Bragg’s little salutary bloodbath evidently had its effect, because he didn’t go AWOL. Wiley quotes Warrick, now in a more Joe Friday mode than when he had promised to “come home Eny how”, writing his parents in 1864,
I would be glad to see you all now but I recon that I have bin home my last time till this war closes.
On this day..
- 2008: Charles Laplace
- 1890: Elmer Sharkey, wretched matricide
- 1835: Patrick O'Brien, Francis Spaight apprentice boy
- 1919: Frank Ezell and Brown Ezell, "Atticus Finch" clients
- 1750: John Young, resisting
- 1694: James Whitney, highwayman
- 1475: Louis de Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol
- 1684: Jane Voss, narrow escapee
- 1932: Yoon Bong-Gil, nationalist assassin
- 1909: Valgrand in place of Fantomas
- 1922: Seven Republican guerrillas in the Curragh of Kildare
- 1948: Amir Sjarifuddin
Having been “forgiven” for one desertion, I’m surprised Johnny Reb didn’t make the correct decision and stay with his outfit. He left Bragg little choice.