Gerald Hodge who responds to messages on the Georgia Message Board has done quite a bit of work with soldiers belonging to Georgia brigades in Stevenson's Division. He should be able to provide answers to a general question about the percent returning to their regiments after being furloughed at Enterprise MS.

The term "mass desertion" should apply to something apporoaching a majority of the command in question going AWOL. For example, after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation two Illinois regiments experienced mass desertion. IMHO the average desertion rate for Alabama regiments after being paroled at Vicksburg would be between ten and twenty percent. In some cases a soldier who left an infantry command after Vicksburg later appears on roll with a cavalry unit.

The number of men who left the ranks of Tennessee regiments belonging to Vaughn's Brigade qualifies as mass desertion. Only small numbers of those men ever returned to Confederate service. Some of those who did return to service crossed the Potomac with Lee's veterans on a third invasion of the North. A handful of them saw action in Maryland, the District of Columbia, West Virginia and the upper Shenandoah before being recalled to SW Virginia and NE Tennessee.