The War for the Common Soldier (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era) by Peter S. Carmichael

Author:Peter S. Carmichael [Carmichael, Peter S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2018-11-02T06:00:00+00:00

JOHN FUTCH

Nonslaveholding North Carolina Laborer

Third North Carolina Infantry

On August 20, 1863, thirteen veteran soldiers from the Third North Carolina fled their camp.94 That night they picked up their rifles, slung on their cartridge belts, and escaped into the woods. From that point on, there was no turning back on a trek of some three hundred perilous miles that would eventually take them to their North Carolina homes. Earlier that day, Lee had ordered his corps commanders to organize armed parties to hunt down runaways while calling for the president to back the immediate enforcement of the death penalty against deserters. While the Tar Heels could not have known that Lee was cracking down on the army as if it were a wild beast, the impact of the general’s orders would be felt with surprising swiftness.

In five days, John Futch and his comrades covered a little more than thirty miles by staying in the bush, walking at night, and avoiding the main roads, yet they remained within the Army of Northern Virginia’s expansive perimeter of control. If the band could just get across the James River—patrolled regularly by the local militia and Lee’s troops—they would likely be home within a few weeks.95 Not far from the hamlet of Scottsville, the Carolinians reached the towpath of the Kanawha Canal. From that slight elevation they could take in the wide expanse of the James River. All appeared clear for crossing, but as they neared the banks of the river, a squad from the Forty-Sixth North Carolina Infantry suddenly sprang out of the woods with their rifles leveled, hammers cocked, and their commanding officer, Richardson Mallet, screaming at the fugitives to surrender. At first the men of the Third North Carolina tried to put down their guns, but it appears that one of the deserters fired a bullet into Mallet’s chest, setting off a heated gun battle of some thirty shots. Who pulled the first trigger is up for debate, and during the ensuing chaos at least one deserter was killed, another was wounded, and one man likely escaped. The remaining ten soldiers surrendered to their captors while Mallet lay on the ground, his coat saturated with the blood gushing from his fatal chest wound. Some of his men rushed him to the nearby Scottsville hospital, and there, just moments before he passed, Mallet carefully chose his last words so that he would forever be remembered as a soldier who gave his life for God and country: “Tell the colonel I was doing my duty, God’s will be done. Amen.”96

It is miraculous that Mallet’s men did not line up Futch and his comrades and shoot them on the spot for killing their commander. Cooler heads managed to prevail, and the deserters were hustled to trains bound for Richmond, where they were incarcerated in the notorious prison Castle Thunder. They awaited trial in dank cells, surrounded by spies, Unionists, slaves, and outright criminals. The severity of the crime ensured that no possible deviation from military law would prevent the army from carrying out the death penalty.

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