I don’t have the exact year (or even decade) nailed down yet, but I’m thinking as early as 1835 to as late as 1855. The setting is America, and I need the story to take place before the Civil War. Anyway, my first question is: what was the penalty for military desertion back then, and how much effort would have been spent tracking down deserters? Additionally, what organizations were responsible for tracking down and bringing in deserters?
A quick Google search reveals lots of info on the Civil War and other wars. Without doing any research myself, I would say that once they were out of the US and into the territories it would be fairly easy to disappear. From Wikipedia: Desertion - Wikipedia Before the Civil War, deserters from the Army were flogged; after 1861, tattoos or branding were also used. The maximum U.S. penalty for desertion in wartime remains death, although this punishment was last applied to Eddie Slovik in 1945. No U.S. serviceman has received more than 24 months imprisonment for desertion or missing movement after September 11, 2001. You may want to ask the question on Quora if there isn't already an answer posted there.
There is this case: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick's_Battalion Most were sentenced to death since they deserted after the declaration of war, so they were treated like traitors basically. Those that deserted before the hostilities were given the branding/flogging punishment as mentioned above.
I would try your local library for information. A good interest search won't do any harm, but I've found that getting information about anything that did not happen in wartime is touch and go. The research librarian will probably turn up more then you ever could, they've got a nack for finding the information you are looking for in places you never would have looked. For online reading, read the sources and their sources of any articles to get the most possible information. In regards to your second question, the military would generally hunts deserters. Unless the guy has commit murder/was a danger to the public, they preferred to deal with such things quickly and quietly. The USA and its territories was a big place during that time, and the territories would not see much law enforcement until after the Civil War. It would have been easy to vanish into what was mostly wilderness at the time. Hope this is helpful. I really try to champion using the library because I learned the hard way that I am not as good at researching as they are and some information never gets an online option.
That’s what I was hoping to confirm. Thanks. For more context, the story I’m brainstorming takes place in either one of the frontier territories or a recently added state. The reason for this is I need ongoing conflict/battles with the Native American tribes and US forces, as well as room for the deserter to disappear. The deserter will likely be an important character, and I was unsure what efforts the military and local government would make to bring him in, especially if they heard rumors of his comings and goings.
No problem! Glad I could offer anything useful. If they've got rumors to go on, thru would put some effort into following them up. However, if they are also dealing with ongoing conflict, they might not have the men to spare to do any real looking. Either they are going to put a lot of effort into finding this guy to make an example out of him, or they won't put much in at all.
You might also contact historical sites like Fort Casper (307-235-8462) or Wyoming Veteran's Memorial Museum (307-237-5071) in Wyoming; reenactors tend to know more than God about esoteric historical subjects.
How would anyone hear rumors of one soldier deserting? The western frontier of the United States and its territories had relatively little intercommunication. Telegraph generally ran along the railroad rights-of-way. Mail was abysmally slow. Newspapers were generally local publications. Once private John Smith walked away from his post and started calling himself George Smith, how was anyone to know he was a deserter? I was in the U.S. Army in the late 1960s, at the height of the Vietnam conflict. In less than a year, during a posting in the U.S., I was involved in finding two AWOLs from our battalion. I was attached to battalion HQ. Our command preferred to handle such things internally, if possible, and we got both of them befiore they had been gone long enough for their status to have changed from AWOL to deserter. One of them I tracked to his parents' home in another state. Getting him back was as simple as a telephone call. The home number was unlisted, but back then the telephone company was THE telephone company, AT&T -- and they still had live operators. I called an operator, told her who I was and that I was calling on official Army business, and I persuaded her to call the parents' unlisted number and connect me with the father. Once I had him on the blower, I just explained to him the potential consequences of his son being AWOL ... and the kid showed up a couple of days later. The other one was caught at his girlfriend's house not too far off the post. We drove there in a van, one of the guys knocked on the front door, and I caught the AWOL soldier when he ran out the back door. We took him back to the post in handcuffs. Dunno what happened to him after that. But neither of those would not have been possible 100+ years earlier. They didn't have fingerprints, they didn't use photo IDs, they didn't have social security numbers. How could they track anyone?
I seem to recall a relatively famous mountain man who deserted during the Mexican-American War. He simply used a different name and grew the stereotypical chin whiskers and went on with his life in Montana, Idaho, etc. Unfortunately, can't remember his name now. Then, there's Marshal Bass Reeves. He was born in slavery but escaped to hide out in the Nations during the Civil War. After the war, he became a Marshal for Judge Parker. In short, it's quite do-able. The earlier, the easier, of course. In 1835, there would have been Native American nations that would help conceal his identity without directly being hostile to white men - check out Jim Beckwourth as another escaped slave before Reeves.
Without re-reading that article (I did read about it some time ago,) I believe none of El Battalion de San Patricio were executed since the Mexicans they were sent to fight took them in. I was hoping to find some Irish in my DNA, since my Mexican grandfather's name was Patricio, but no dice.
Have a read of The American Civil War War: a Visual History by DK pg200 War-weary People Covers the Northern Draft, deserters and 'Bounty Jumpers' Sorry, mis-read your question. Pre-civil war from the Army were flogged. Desertion - Wikipedia
