Lee searched for an effective policing strategy in the wake of the failed amnesty program, but deep down he must have known that he would have to inflict harsher punishments on his men. “I begin to fear,” the commanding general concluded, “[that] nothing but the death penalty, uniformly, inexorably administered, will stop it.”

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Civil War Times magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Lee’s fears were realized at the beginning of September, when he authorized a series of executions. A month later at least 20 men had been shot to death by their comrades. Reports also surfaced that delinquent solders were receiving prison sentences that ranged between five and 10 years.

Anger over these punitive measures, either from soldiers or civilians, did not receive press coverage. In fact, newspaper editors did not raise a single question about the use of firing squads. They gave critical support to the use of violence against deserters and their collaborators on the home front at a time when Confederate officials were launching a violent campaign to eradicate dissenters.

While scores of men from the 57th North Carolina deserted from the regiment after Gettysburg, most stayed put. Their decision to remain in the army, however, should not be viewed as proof of Confederate loyalty or high morale. The practical challenges of running away, the possibility of having to live the life of a fugitive on the home front and the army’s violent crackdown on desertion kept men like Wagner and Zimmerman tethered to their units. We should not conclude that they had given themselves to the Confederate cause, that they were inspired by the nationalistic rhetoric of politicians, or that they continued to fight out of deep sense of comradeship. They fought out of necessity, but resignation did not mean passivity. Even when they were physically and emotionally worn down, as both men were after Gettysburg, they possessed the mental resolve to question the morality of the war and the suffering that it had caused so many loved ones.

Clear-cut answers to these difficult questions, however, did not magically appear. Zimmerman and Wagner found themselves trapped in a conflict that must at times have seemed incomprehensible, leaving them both frustrated and confused. Zimmerman expressed the mental outlook of countless dissenting Confederates who desired freedom but could not find a realistic way to escape the morass of war. Wagner expressed conflicted sentiments when he wrote in August 1863: “I would go too (desert) for God onleys knows I want this war to End and I hope and pray to God it will End before long some way or a nother so we all can go home to our Dear Wives and children and live in peese as before for God onley knows I am that tired of the war that I don’t hardly know what to doo any more.”

It is hard to determine how many of Wagner’s and Zimmerman’s comrades shared their opinions after Gettysburg, but their words and actions remind us that all soldiers were monitored very closely inside the army. Such policing limited their options to either speak out or to follow their principles. Lee and other Confederate officials realized imploring men to do their duty was not enough. An amnesty program or furlough only bred more discontent. They grimly determined that the men needed to be reminded of the lethal risks of desertion by exercising the ultimate form of government power against its citizens—capital punishment.

Rather than strike out against a Confederate army that was both abusive and negligent and risk the possibility of being brought before a firing squad, Wagner and Zimmerman acknowledged that they occupied the bottom rung of the army, and that there was no escaping their confinement. Furthermore, they refused to delude the people back home that the war was some kind of heroic adventure. They wanted everyone to know that they confronted a world of unpredictable violence and brutal restrictions.

With great honesty and courage, these two soldiers had the resolve to admit to themselves and to their families that they could do nothing to alter their situation except to find a way to survive this horrible ordeal.

Peter S. Carmichael, the Eberly Professor of Civil War Studies, at West Virginia University, has completed numerous studies on Confederate motivation and morale. For more information, see “Resources,” page 72 of the August 2008 issue of Civil War Times magazine.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to