Desperation sure can lead to some creativity. Here a soldier and his friends used a “novel mode” to try to escape the military, but the Confederate authorities eventually got their man. The Richmond paper reminded their readers about the high penalties for helping deserters. At least in this case, the deserter himself was punished by being sent back to the service.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch April 29, 1864:
Local Matters.
Harboring a deserter.
–A novel mode of screening deserters from arrest was disclosed before Commissioner A. H. Sands a day or two since. There being some suspicion that a man named J. H. A. Bowlar, a deserter from the Confederate service, was about the premises of Mrs. Louisa Lankford, living in Screamersville, a guard was dispatched to search her house. In one of the rooms was a bed on which were two females who claimed to be very sick; but having instituted a fruitless search about every other part of the house, and there being some doubts in their minds as to the truth of the statement made by the professed invalids, the officers of the law insisted upon examining the bed upon which they lay, when Bowlar was found between two beds, on the top one of which were the two women. Getting wind of the approach of the guard, the above mentioned mode was adopted as the one most likely to shield him from detection. The discovery, however, was a lucky one for Bowlar, for when rescued from his hiding place he was in a very exhausted state, and had he remained there much longer in all probability he would have suffocated.
The parties were committed by the Commissioner to Castle Thunder. Subsequently Bowlar was tried by Court Martial, the verdict of which body was that he should be drummed out of the service and afterwards conscribed for another branch of the service.
The penalty for harboring deserters.
–As many persons are not aware of the penalty laid down for harboring deserters from the Confederate service, the following section passed by the last Congress is published for general information:
“The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact. That every person not subject to the rules and articles of war, who shall procure or entice a soldier, or person enrolled for service in the army of the Confederate States, to desert, or who shall aid or assist any deserter from the army, or any person enrolled for service, to evade their proper commanders, or to prevent their arrest to be returned to the service, or who shall knowingly conceal or harbor any such deserter, or shall purchase from any soldier or person enrolled for service any portion of his arms, equipments, rations, or clothing, or any property belonging to the Confederate States, or any officer or soldier of the Confederate States, shall, upon conviction before the District Court of the Confederate States having jurisdiction of the offence, confined not exceeding one thousand dollars, and be imprisoned not exceeding two years.”
