The Daily Dispatch: January 27, 1864., [Electronic resource]

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How to cure desertion.

--A writer in the Mobile Register suggests the following plan to cure desertion:

The necessity for the return of all absentees, to the army will be sufficient excuse, for troubling you with my suggestions:

1. Let Congress define desertion to include absence without leave for — days.

2. Let Congress pass a law compelling all commanders of regiments, battalions, and separate companies, to publish for two weeks (after each muster,) in three newspapers of the State from which the men came, the names of all officers and men absent without leave for — days.

3. Let Congress place deserters on the same footing as men who, having furnished substitutes, attempt to leave the country — that is, declare them alien enemies. They are really worse.

4. Let every marriage with a deserter be illegal. This will stop the breed. Shooting does not cure desertion except in the man who is shot.

The army cannot attend to the enemy in front (the Lincolns) and the enemy in rear (the deserters) at the same time. The people at home must do their part. Let the women and old men at home make home so much more disagreeable than camp for the deserters that they will prefer camp.