human
in Marion County. The colonel reported that the number of tories had been greatly exaggerated, though the woods seemed to be swarming with deserters, and he learned that they had a secret organization.[262] The deserters always infested the wildest and most remote parts of the country, and were found wherever disaffection toward the Confederacy had appeared. The Texans, who had no local attachments to interfere with their duty, drove back into the army several thousand
gpt
as the better class of deserters were called.[263] General Polk reported (April, 1864) that in north Alabama formidable bands were being organized for resistance to the government, and that hostility to the Confederacy was openly proclaimed by them. He sent out detachments which forced more than a thousand men to leave the woods and hills and return to the army.[264] When Alabama soldiers were captured or deserted to the enemy, it was the custom of the Federals to send them north of the Ohio River, and to offer to enlist as many as possible in regiments to fight the Indians in the West. Some took advantage of the offer and thus avoided prison life. Such men were called