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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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A Higher Duty, Desertion Among Georgia Troops During the Civil War
by Mark A. Weitz.
Illustrated, maps, notes, index, bibliographic essay, 127 pp., 2000. University of Nebraska Press, 233 North 8th St., Lincoln, NE 68588-0255, $30 plus shipping.
Throughout the Civil War, Georgia newspapers listed deserters on a daily basis. The Macon Daily Telegraph in October 1864 ran half-page notices every other day over the course of two weeks and listed dozens of deserters. The number of deserters was undoubtedly much greater because the newspaper could not possibly have tracked all the deserters accurately. Between December 1863 and December 1864, over 3000 Georgians deserted to the enemy, but the newspaper list-ings never approached these figures with any kind of accuracy. Even Union soldiers admitted the newspaper reports failed to come even close to the actual figures. Maj. James Conally, an officer in the Army of the Cumberland, stated, "The newspapers don’t tell one hundredth part of the facts regarding desertion from the rebel army." Author Mark A. Weitz in his book, A Higher Duty, Desertion Among Georgia Troops During the Civil War, attempts to do today what the newspapers in the 1860s could not, and he does it so successfully, it is almost as if he were there. His compelling study of a neglected but important phase of the Civil War conveys why and when these Georgia soldiers left the ranks and went over to the enemy. In his exhaustive study chronicling how many soldiers actually deserted, Weitz takes us beyond the obvious reasons for these actions — war is hell and the horrors of combat. He carefully examines both the psychological and emotional reasons that led a dedicated soldier to turn his back on his country and desert. But the author takes us even further by examining the effect of these desertions and what they say about Confederate nationalism and the war effort. Weitz’s deserters are very real. We read about their experiences in the text and see them in a kind of "Rogues Gal-lery" photographic section in the middle of the book. We quickly realize they are common flesh and blood soldiers — neither heroes nor villains — and because the author has done his homework, we do not look at them as anything but victims of geography. The Union policy to reconstruct Confederate soldiers may have ultimately failed, but what it did do was document Southern desertion beyond the obscure estimates published in newspapers. Author Weitz has produced a compelling study well told and well researched. Its appeal is not limited to a regional audience but to anyone interested in little-known chapters of Civil War history. Not only has he made the deserter understandable to the armchair historian but also human.
Jack Koblas
Jack Koblas is author of many magazine and newspaper articles and the recently published J.J. Dickson: Swamp Fox of the Confederacy.
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