Southern Deserters Branded With The Letter D- Jefferson Davis practically begged deserters to return
Image: Example from Convict Tattoos: Marked Men and Women of Australia
Official figures show slightly over 103,000 Confederate soldiers and over 200,000 Union soldiers deserted, with some estimates as high as 280,000.
Following the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, even General Robert E. Lee conceded that desertion had become so a severe that it threatened the Confederacy’s ability to wage war. Alternatives to execution varied. In 1861 Confederate laws allowed for flogging up to thirty-nine lashes and branding the convicted man with the letter “D.” Branding had been used in the pre-Civil War Union army as well. However, both sides abandoned the practice and the Confederate congress removed both flogging and branding as acceptable forms of punishment early in the war.
Short of execution, soldiers could be incarcerated in the stockade and subjected to a variety of non-lethal punishments designed to humiliate the offender. In the South Confederate soldiers also faced the added risk of being punished by Home Guards who patrolled counties unoccupied by the Union and would summarily execute deserters.
The branding was often administered at a regimental or division field hospital. An orderly heated the branding iron - made specifically for deserters – until it was sufficiently hot, then handed it to the surgeon, who pressed it into the man's cheek. “There was a sizzling sound, followed by the acrid-sweet smell of burning flesh and blood, and then a long wail.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/4/11/966022/-
http://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/desertion,-cowardice-and-punishment.html
photo https://www.the4thwall.net/blog/2016/9/24/convict-tattoos-marked-men-and-women-of-australia
