There are many times a Confederate soldier is declared a "Deserter", or having "deserted." By the way, the bi-monthly company muster rolls are
usually the only documents which record a soldiers service. There was no central Confederate office which compiled such records.

Having this record, you need to ascertain if he ever returned to his regiment at a later date. Some have returned many months later.

This you accomplish by checking company muster rolls which follow from that which provided the above intelligence.

If later muster rolls are found for his company, and there are no further records of him, then you can be assured that he indeed did desert.

In cases of true desertion, the next muster roll would usually note his being dropped from the rolls.

However, because many Confederate records were lost, destroyed, etc., and never recovered for incorporation in the Compiled Service Records, then, we
do not know if he ever returned to his command, if the intelligence of his desertion is the last company muster roll in the records .