I wonder when not fighting if he was perhaps a company or regimental artifcer? Alot of those guys seem to have always been on detatched duties of some sort.

I had a gr-gr uncle who was in the 12th Georgia Battalion and he was listed as a artifcer. He was always shown on the rolls as being on detatched service in Charleston in 1863. He was also shown to have been "on a shoe making detail at Petersburg in 1865 when the lines were broken and was with the wagon trains, not the command."

Sounds like alot of these guys spent periods of time away from their commands in rear areas where the work could be done safely.