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Re: What happened once absent and arrested?

02 07 1863 [Saturday]

At three and one-half o’clock the Regiment was formed and two men, John Keeling, Company B, and Wm Elkin, Company I, were marched out in front where their sentenences were read and executed for desertion. John Keeling was to wear a ball and chair for two months, with the loss of two month’s wages, doing police duty all the while in the Regiment. Elkins was tied to a post and given thirty-nine lashes on his naked back. He then was branded on the lefby J. N. Stamper, Drum Major. Then Elkins was drummed out of the service to the tune of Yankee Doodle. This looked pretty hard but he deserved all of it. The Regiment then returned to camp expressing their dislike for such discharges. (Stamper)

He was then marched before his regiment with a guard, the fife and drum playing Yankee Doodle, and turned loose to shift for himself a thousand miles from home. He hollowed and begged while he received the leather strap but all to no purpose. The colonel and General Reynolds was present besides three regiments and officers. I am glad the scene happened. It will serve as a lesson to us all. (Smith, 273)

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03 06 1863 [Friday]

The right wing of the 43rd Regiment went to Warrenton on picket duty. At twelve o’clock the remainder of the 43rd Regiment, together with the 3rd and 59th Regiments, went to see a soldier shot for desertion. I, being with the Regiment, went to see him executed. At about two o’clock the convict arrived in his shroud, riding on his coffin. The picture of death was on his coutenance. Upon his arrival a deadly silence reigned all through the Division permitted [---?---]. Soon he was placed ag≤ainst his post and [in] a minute was shot dead, dead, dead. This was a solemn occasion. He was a deserter from our Army and had joined the enemy and had been taken prisoner. Three others were shot the same day for similiar charges, but not at this Division. Thus we see the examples must be made for the good of others. (Stamper)

.........

Travels of the 43rd Regiment, Tennessee Volunteers, Diary of I. J. Stamper
Isaac Stamper, Fife Major, 43rd Tennessee Infantry, CSA

Diary can be found at the Tennessee State Archives, Nashville and the Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Tenn. History Department

……

We Can Hold Our Ground, Calvin Smith’s Diary, Civil War Times,
April 1985 [Lt. Calvin M. Smith, 31st Tenn., CSA]

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What happened once absent and arrested?
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