August 13 or 14, 1861:
The colonel, major & one of our Nantucket privates captured yesterday 1 sergeant & 15 privates who had been lured away [by] the tempting offers of the New York Irish [Brigade], as well as the New York recruiting sergeant who [lured] them off, the latter being safely lodged in jail to be tried by civil process...We are going to shoot the deserting sergeant if we can.
Please come out & see a dress parade whenever you get a chance.
Nothing prepares us non-soldiers for the bolded sentence. How were the sergeant and privates "deserting?" They weren't going back to the plow and they weren't going over to the enemy, they were staying in the United States army, they just got a better offer, it seems. There were very few deserters executed in the Civil War, especially early on. The more reasonable reading of this paragraph therefore is that it shows Abbott's bloodlust. "Please come out & see a dress parade..." following immediately after "We are going to shoot the deserting sergeant..." shows his detachment. It reads like Humphreys' letter to his wife after Fredericksburg, "We lost 1,000 men," Period. "Oh, it was glorious."
The colonel, major & one of our Nantucket privates captured yesterday 1 sergeant & 15 privates who had been lured away [by] the tempting offers of the New York Irish [Brigade], as well as the New York recruiting sergeant who [lured] them off, the latter being safely lodged in jail to be tried by civil process...We are going to shoot the deserting sergeant if we can.
Please come out & see a dress parade whenever you get a chance.
Nothing prepares us non-soldiers for the bolded sentence. How were the sergeant and privates "deserting?" They weren't going back to the plow and they weren't going over to the enemy, they were staying in the United States army, they just got a better offer, it seems. There were very few deserters executed in the Civil War, especially early on. The more reasonable reading of this paragraph therefore is that it shows Abbott's bloodlust. "Please come out & see a dress parade..." following immediately after "We are going to shoot the deserting sergeant..." shows his detachment. It reads like Humphreys' letter to his wife after Fredericksburg, "We lost 1,000 men," Period. "Oh, it was glorious."
