Everyone is welcome at our monthly meetings.

Attend the dinner and presentation, or just the presentation.

We meet September through June, generally on the second Friday evening of each month. See list of meeting dates and speakers below for our 2010-2011 program year.

January 14, 2011

Larry Hewitt on:
"Slandered Heros: Deserters Who Didn't"

Historian James McPherson is the most prominent of the many historians who’ve pointed out that the Union and Confederate armies lost to desertion many “summer soldiers and sunshine patriots” (to borrow Thomas Paine’s famous phrase). Getting a handle on the numbers of deserters has seemed a relatively easy task, since the muster rolls of both armies recorded when and if a soldier went AWOL and deserted. Those numbers have often been used to denigrate the common soldier’s devotion to cause and country.

On January 14th, Professor Larry Hewitt will challenge the conventional wisdom and assert that many Civil War soldiers whose official service records conclude that they were absent without leave at the end of the war, in fact either died in service or remained on duty. The vast majority of these were the result of bureaucratic procedures used by both sides that required soldiers who disappeared on the battlefield to be labeled as deserters on subsequent muster rolls. These same regulations enabled at least one massacre to be covered up by the North, while amendments to them in the fall of 1863 by the South required thousands of men who were present with their units to be listed as deserters. Union and Confederate soldiers representing the Eastern, Western, and Trans-Mississippi theaters will be highlighted as examples of these bureaucratic injustices.

A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Lawrence Lee Hewitt received his B.A. from the University of Kentucky in 1974, and his Ph.D. at Louisiana State University, studying under T. Harry Williams and Bill Cooper.

After serving as the Historic Site Manager of the Port Hudson (1978-82) and the Camp Moore State Commemorative Areas (1982-1986), he joined the faculty of Southeastern Louisiana University in 1985. He resigned his professorship in 1996 to marry a native of Chicago, where he currently resides. Since relocating to Chicago, Hewitt served as Managing Editor (1997-1998) and Book Review Editor (1997-1999) for North & South Magazine.

Hewitt’s books include Port Hudson, Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi (1987); The Confederate High Command & Related Topics (1990); Leadership During the Civil War (1992); Louisianians in the Civil War (2002), which he coedited with Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr.; Kentuckians in Gray: Confederate Generals and Field Officers of the Bluegrass State (2008), coedited with Bruce S. Allardice. Hewitt is nearly finished with 2 new books: America's Foremost Hispanic: David Glasgow Farragut, and The 14th Louisiana Infantry: the Fightingest Regiment in the Civil War.

Review: By Jackie Wilson

At the 697th meeting of the Chicago Civil War Round Table, on January 14, 2011, our own Lawrence Lee Hewitt, PhD gave a talk about ?Deserters Who Didn?t.? He began by telling the story of his infamous ?Yankee? relative, J. C. Barnes, who began his army career with a 100?day enlistment in the 136th Indiana followed by service in the 42nd Illinois, and eventually hospitalized in St. Louis, Missouri in August 1862. When he was discharged from the hospital, he did not rejoin his regiment, but instead enlisted in the Mississippi Marine Brigade. He had the proper hospital discharge papers and the mustering out papers but somehow they never reached his old unit and thus was branded a deserter. This was the first of many men who are listed deserters but in reality did not.

In some cases, soldiers died in combat, were buried, and their unit never notified and thus they were branded deserters as well. Immediately before and after an engagement, the rolls were checked to see if the soldiers were there or not. There was also the bi-monthly roll call that was used to determine the soldier?s pay. There were eight possibilities that could be used, but it was not until World War I that the muster rolls would include Missing in Action. So the Civil War MIA became a deserter until evidence provided otherwise.

One problem occurred at Petersburg when the tunnel exploded. Because there were no identifiable bodies found at the center of the explosion, those soldiers could not be marked dead, except for Colonel Fleming, who was reported to have been ?killed in action before Petersburg.? but all the lesser ranked soldiers were probably marked as deserters. One Junior 2nd Lieutenant Quattlebaum was ?Supposed to have been killed.? Can you imagine what some poor clerk, who knew that these men were probably dead but could not mark them as such, could do with the paperwork? The men who were no longer reporting for roll call could not be paid but because they could not be marked deceased, neither could they pay the next of kin.

At Gettysburg on July 2, the 14th Louisiana was involved in the attack on Culp?s Hill. The records indicate that 36 men were missing. There was no way to tell who was captured as some of the men gave false names to the enemy. But at least three men were not captured nor did they return to their regiment. These men were killed but reported as deserters

Another reason for being marked as deserters was the destruction of the muster rolls. The diary of Edmund Eggleston, which covered the time period November 1863 through December 31, 1864 indicated that his battery was overrun at Nashville and all the company papers and records were lost. The last of the unit?s records were dated March and April 1864. Therefore Sergeant Eggleston is marked as AWOL, even though he returned to his unit in May 1864 and four of his fellow unit members who were killed that day in December are also marked as deserters. His granddaughter was Stella Stevens, the actress.

A third reason for being marked as a deserter was when a soldier was too ill to continue to fight, and was furloughed home. Before they could rejoin their regiment, they were drafted into another unit by Major General Thomas C. Hindman. Therefore, members of the 17th Arkansas were marked as deserters when they were transferred into the newly organized 35th Arkansas.

Some Confederate soldiers who were captured at Vicksburg were paroled and sent home on a 30-day furlough. Many of these men lived west of the Mississippi and when their 30 days were up, could not recross the river. They eventually joined General Price, but were still marked as deserters from their old unit. There were at least 2000 such men marked as deserters?who didn?t.

In conclusion, Hewitt presented a wonderful explanation as to why the numbers of deserters on both sides were erroneous. To hear the entire talk, there is a recording of the meeting (and every meeting) available from Hal Ardell, audio librarian. Contact Hal at (773) 774-6781 or by email at hal229@ameritech.net. Click here to view his slide presentations.

For our 2010-2011 program year, we proudly welcome these outstanding speakers:

September 10, 2010       Synopsis        Photos
Wayne Mahood, Ph.D.
"General Wadsworth"

October 8, 2010              Synopsis        Photos
Earl Hess, Ph.D.
"Soldier Life in the Trenches at Petersburg"

November 12, 2010        Synopsis         Photos
Robert Girardi
"Civil War Corps Command: A Study in Leadership"

December 10, 2010        Synopsis
Samuel C. Hyde Jr., Ph.D.
"A Wisconsin Yankee in the Confederate Bayou Country"

January 14, 2011            Synopsis
Lawrence L. Hewitt, Ph.D.
"Slandered Heros: Deserters Who Didn't"

February 11, 2011
Dan Sutherland
"Guerilla War"

March 11, 2011
Susan Boardman
"Gettysburg Cyclorama"

April 8, 2011
Richard M. McMurry, Ph.D.
"TBA"

May 13, 2011
Tom Schott, Ph.D.
"Alexander Stephens"

June 10, 2011
Peter Carmichael, Ph.D.
"TBA"

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