AN UNNECESSARY KILLING. Pt. 3

Desertion was no small matter at the time, and Samuel was all too well aware of it. As often, as not when a deserter was discovered, he paid the highest conceivable price for having done so. And thus, the typical deserter avoided the familiar places and faces for an extended period of time, and secluded himself in the most unlikely habitat of which he was privy.

And thus, it was the same with Samuel.

He concealed himself in a portion of his adopted state to which Joshua alludes, but in so little detail that its exact location is unknown to this day; perhaps the Waldo/Starke area of Florida. Be that as it may, Samuel and two other deserters eventually made their way to Irwin County in their home state of Georgia.

Joshua’s short commentary about the event is among the most poignant I have ever read on the topic.

“When a house that him and two other men with similar charges were resting in was surrounded, and without being asked to surrender; a rifle ball was sent through his heart by a creature that claimed to be a confederate soldier. This occurred on the 17 day of Oct. 1863, and but a few miles from the spot where Jefferson Davis was captured.

I remember when the last-named event took place some of the family remarked that it seemed the hand of Providence was in it, that the nominal head of a government should be captured allmost on the spot where the same government had willfully murdered one of our family less than two years before. The other two men was captured and sent to the front where they died before the surender. 

After brother Samuel was killed the reader may naturaly supose that our family loyalty was not even what it was before. Yet hampered by a strong central government, that seemed disposed to act in such a promt, and vigorous maner, self-preservation demanded that no outward show, or demonstration would be wise. 

So we went along in the even tenor of our way; bearing as it seemed an unusualy heavy part of the burden that the war laid on every ones shoulders…”

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 48. Copyright pending

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