You may want to contact Michael Guy. He has a website on the 65th Georgia and he may have a more micro viewpoint of the regiment, however, given the counties that the 65th Georgia came from I can tell you they had a problem with desertion due to the Unionist sympathies of the region.

http://www.izzy.net/~michaelg/65ga-vi.htm

I did my master's thesis on desertion in the 39th Georgia and the issues will likely be the same.

History Mythbusting. The South was not a harmonious, united Confederacy in spite of what some of the early writers of the “Lost Cause” portrayed and is even perpetuated by some today. We have often heard about the bloody war in Missouri but often have been led to believe that was an anomaly “out west.” It was not just an anomaly limited to the western frontier. Appalachia from West Virginia to Georgia were scenes of extreme violence during the war and for years afterwards that has often been overlooked by historians and not often recorded in local histories. Recent scholarly efforts are being made to examine the various incidents and causes of this brutality.

I recommend you read the book “A Separate Civil War: Communities in Conflict in the Mountain South,” by Jonathan Dean Sarris, published by University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, Virginia, 2006. I believe this book is either an expansion of his master’s thesis or doctorial dissertation, I forget which. It is a good primer on the conditions that existed in Northern Georgia during the war that led to brutal slaughter of civilians on both sides. It would continue on into Reconstruction. He looks at the micro level the counties of Lumpkin and Fannin, Georgia and Northern Georgia on the macro-level. Gilmer and Pickens Counties are included in this.

“Guerrilla” units. These “organizations” were not authorized by either the Federal, Confederate, or state governments. I believe it is safe to say that local authorities had little or no “control” over them either. They claimed affiliation with the Federal or Confederate cause but in reality they were ticks living off the women, children, and old people that could not move further south to relative safety. They were made up of deserters or men that had evaded service all together. I have seen enough evidence during my research to show that some of these men continued their murdering ways many years after the war.

Northern Georgia had declined to the point of a humanitarian catastrophe. Brigadier General William T. Wofford had come home to Cassville to recuperate from a wound and saw the state of the people in northern Georgia he requested to assist. He was made the department commander of northern Georgia on January 23, 1865. Special Order 18/36: “He will proceed to Northern Georgia, with full power to collect such stragglers and deserters and to dissolve such illegal organizations as may be found in that section. He will place them in temporary [organizations] for immediate duty until they can be sent to their proper commands. He will also enroll all men liable to conscription who have thus far evaded the service. He is authorized to obtain from Maj. Gen. Howell Cobb such forces as may be necessary.”

He spent the months of March and April 1865 scouring the country side to gather these men with some success. Wofford also coordinated a humanitarian relief effort with the Federal authorities in April and on May 2, 1865 he surrendered himself and all Confederate forces at Resaca. He then made arrangements for a formal surrender at Kingtson, Georgia on May 12, 1865. Men came into surrender and receive paroles from then until May 20, 1865.

For some additional reading about this time period and Wofford I recommend “One of the Most Daring of Men, The Life of Confederate General William Tatum Wofford,” Chapter 7, pages 131-148 by Gerald J. Smith.

“…so we made our way to Kingston and received our paroles. There was at that time a large number of soldiers at home, sick and wounded, besides a large number of others who had deserted and had been hiding out in the mountains. Some lived and slept in caves. Then there were a large number who claimed to be scouts, but they pillaged more than they scouted. The day of the parole, I saw the motliest crew I have ever seen before or since. These so-called scouts were strutting around with broadbrimmed hats, long hair, and jingling spurs. You could see the old “moss-back” who had crept out of his cave. You would find groups sad-looking men who had followed Lee, Jackson, Johnston, and Wheeler through the war. Some of them carried the mud and dust of 5 or 6 states on their clothes. From all over north Georgia and north Alabama they gathered at Kingston.” (Smith, page 145.)

Those are, of course, only the wave tops on this subject. Unfortunately, there is not a list of those that surrendered at Kingston like we have for those that surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia or at Greensboro, North Carolina. We do know that it was approximately 4,000 men that surrendered. The only record of names is when men state they surrendered there. Fortunately, we come up with some of these names as a result of looking at the Georgia Confederate Indigent Veteran or Widow's pensions. I know with the 39th Georgia I have been able to look at their service record and then if they claimed to have joined another "unit" and analyze their witnesses who often turn out to have as a shaddy past as they may have.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Respectfully,

Gerald D. Hodge, Jr.
M.A. Military History - Civil War Concentration
Research - Preservation
Historian: 39th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment