The rate of desertion during the American Revolution is one that remains largely unanswered. Revolutionary War historians have tried to ascertain motive as well as approximate desertion numbers using vague methodologies. In the introduction to Joseph Lee Boyle’s two-volume compilation book of transcribed deserter ads taken from eighteenth century newspapers, he suggests that the desertion rate within the Continental Army was between 20-25%.1 Boyle believes that the lack of accurate recordkeeping leads to an inability to measure the rate of desertion.2

Another source worth noting is The Papers of George Washington, which is a twenty-six-volume collection of his correspondence to military personal throughout the war effort. This collection can be found online through the National Archives, and allows customizable searches. The individual letters feature information on desertion including: desertion laws, court martials, numerical reports of desertion within regiments, as well as events of mutiny. The George Washington Papers provide detail and insight to individual desertion events during the Revolutionary War.

The aforementioned sources all confront a research question that is incomprehensible without the use of technology. The ability to create databases, sort through and categorize large data sets, and query statistical findings offers a new vantage point to quantitative historical events such as desertion. Using transcribed data from the Record of Service of Connecticut Men in the I. War of the Revolution, compiled by the Adjutant- General’s office in Hartford, Connecticut, presents new material that may change the current scholarship. This visualization of Connecticut Revolutionary War desertion is a challenge to the desertion narrative. Using primary source material as data, questions regarding desertion during the Revolutionary War can finally be asked and answered with a vast array of desertion data compiled in one location.

Over the span of eight years, Connecticut newspapers such as The Connecticut Courant, The New-London Gazette, The Norwich Packet, The Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island Weekly Advertiser, and The Connecticut Journal ran approximately 200 ads seeking help from the general public in the return of deserters to the war effort. The General Assembly announced in October 1776 that all soldiers who ignored the call to march with their particular companies since July 1, 1776 were required to report to their posts. If they returned, leniency would be granted by the Governor. If they did not obey the proclamation, the Governor would be forced to publish the identities of the rebel soldiers “…in the several news-papers within this State.” 3 The refusal to march was considered an act of defiance, and all those who disregarded the order were deemed ‘Deserters’.

The necessity for a “compulsory conscription” was enforced as early as the Spring of 1777 by General George Washington. 4 The General Assembly was not willing to force the drafted enlistment of troops, and it would not be until the expiration of three year terms ending in Spring of 1778 that Trumbull would find it necessary to sanction drafts state wide, which was met with an increase in lengthy lists of evaders in desertion advertisements. While desertion law was to be invoked by the General Assembly, the Connecticut Line experienced six executions recorded in the Muster Roll.

Using Muster Roll statistics, the frequency of desertion increased with length of enlistment. Soldiers who served eight months to one year had the lowest amount of desertion at .04%, while three-year terms experienced 30%, and enlistment contracts for the entire war totaled 66% of all desertions with known enlistment terms.5 Sign on bounty varied with term lengths, the higher the commitment the larger the bounty. While monetary incentive to sign on for longer periods was attractive to many young men, it is apparent that the duration of the war with Britain was unpredictable, and the vow of an entire war length enlistment most often unfulfilled.

Seasonality was also a contributing factor to a soldier’s morale within the Continental Army. Historians have referenced planting season and Harvest as a driving factor for desertion during the Revolutionary War.6 According to Muster Roll data Spring and Summer experienced the highest rates of desertion in any given year over the course of the war.7Desertion during the Fall and Winter months proved more difficult due to lack of foliage/ tree cover and the unpredictability in weather. Deserting from Winter Camp could almost ensure a certain death without adequate clothing or shelter to protect the deserter from the elements. Early American historians that often assume desertion as a response to the harsh conditions during the winter months at Valley Forge in 1777-78 and the mutiny event in Morristown at camp in 1780-81.8 Despite obligations to return home for the planting season, it should also be noted that many soldiers of the Connecticut Line deserted during times of rebuilding and refortification along the Hudson in the Peekskill vicinity.



In addition to the season, topography, and proximity played a huge role in when and where desertion occurred. The Connecticut Line by orders of Major General Israel Putnam via George Washington spent a great deal of time rebuilding fortifications during the Spring 1776- Spring 1779 campaigns under the guidance of General Philip Schuyler. To further prove the quantity of desertions that occurred in the Highlands area of the Hudson within the Connecticut Line during the war, it was essential to map the desertion events according to the chronological narrative provided in the Record of Service of Connecticut Men. This source became the foundation for the following interactive map, in which each individual deserter was researched by means of desertion date- leading to an approximate location based on regiment and company assignment at the time of desertion.



The map above is grouped in clickable layers by year. You can observe each year independently, or several at one time. The data is clustered by location and frequency of desertion. When clicking on clusters, blue markers are exposed representing each individual soldier. Here, you will find data taken from the Muster Roll, such as: the Soldier’s Name, Regiment, Company, Enlistment and Desertion dates, and comments created through extensive timeline research to place the deserter in the historical context of the desertion event. When using the map, it is obvious that the majority of desertions occurred in or around Peekskill.

Fortifications were rebuilt in Spring and Summer each year after Winter Camp. The Highlands straddled the states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Even though there was great deforestation in much of the New England colonies during the 18th century, according to artwork of this period, the region was left virtually unscathed outside of the building of camps for soldiers stationed in the vicinity. Under the guise of tree camouflage and with the aid of temperate weather during the Spring and Summer, as well as travelable distances to Connecticut, Peekskill in particular was an area of high desertion rates for opportunistic soldiers. Based on dates of desertion in the Muster Roll, it is implied that deserters often left their posts outside of military confrontations. In other words, deserters more often than not left during periods of battle lulls. To better iterate the quantity of deserters by state, see Figure 2.





Referring back to the Introduction, Boyle’s statement of the percent of desertion during the Revolutionary War being upward of 20% was the catalyst for this study. What was the rate of desertion in Connecticut during the Revolutionary War? Using the Record of Service of Connecticut Men, in Figure 3, the estimated figure of desertion amongst the Connecticut Line is well below 10%. This is considering the 153 Deserters that are not included in the data frame due to a missing year variable in the Muster Roll data. The importance of this variation from previous estimations enable new questions to be asked, thesis statements to be reexamined, and source material to be validated or nullified. Most importantly, this research helps solidify one state’s desertion rates within Washington’s Continental Army.




As primary sources are consulted, and new information is transcribed and applied, the dimensionality of desertion history amongst the Connecticut Line during the Revolutionary War continues to take shape. It is the hope of this research project to provide quantifiable answers to a few of the many questions regarding desertion during wartime. While this study is small- a mere portion of desertion history based on one state’s contribution- it is a starting point to compile more primary source based data using digital tools. In relevance to the scope of modern war history, it is hopeful that the methodology used in this paper can be applied to other colonies during the American Revolution, and quite possibly even other wars such as The War of 1812 and The Civil War.

This research question developed due to the lack of a dedicated historical study to Revolutionary War desertion in Connecticut. Ideally this project will continue, and with it more definitive questions and answers will arise to reflect a desertion history that was once incomprehensible before the introduction of digital history. The research and methodology used represent a step toward combining both quantitative and the qualitative approaches which are needed to offer a new vantage point to desertion history and help contextualize the written material historians rely indiscriminately upon.

  1. Joseph Lee Boyle, He Loves a Good Deal of Rum. Military Desertions During the American Revolution. Volume One (Baltimore: Clearfield, 2009), 2. Boyle is not a historian and produced these books as genealogical resource material. While he provides an interesting and thought-provoking introduction, the material is not substantiated with source material. Throughout his introduction there is little validity in his facts or statistics as he does not cite the information or mention his references. He provides a “For Further Reading” list at the end of his Introduction, yet it remains unclear from where and what he draws his assumptions regarding deserters.↩

  2. [Ibid., 6.]↩

  3. Connecticut, and Council of Safety, The Public Records of the State of Connecticut with the Journal of the Council of Safety and with an Appendix, Volume One, (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1894), 25. The Public Records of the State of Connecticut attest to the necessity to publish advertisements in Connecticut newspapers early on in the war effort to reprimand soldiers who refused to answer the call to arms. This proclamation by Governor Jonathan Trumbull is referenced in the Public Records, and the motion to provide amnesty to those who deserted their obligation, as long as they return to the cause promptly. This was passed by the General Assembly, in response to poor recruitment turnout, and inevitably set the tone for the Connecticut Line’s response to war time shirkers.↩

  4. Richard Buel, Dear Liberty: Connecticut’s Mobilization for the Revolutionary War (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press; Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1980), 107.↩

  5. Connecticut Adjutant-General’s Office and Henry Phelps Johnston, Record of Service of Connecticut Men. All data used to produce statistical results formuated in Excel was independently collected from Muster Roll.↩

  6. Buel, Dear Liberty, 123-125.↩

  7. Record of Service of Connecticut Men. This information was gathered by creating timelines of Connecticut troops whereabouts based on detailed historical accounts in the record by corresponding year and Regiment.↩

  8. Carl Van Doren, Mutiny in January: The Story of a Crisis in the Continental Army Now for the First Time Fully Told from Many Hitherto Unknown or Neglected Sources Both American and British. (New York: The Viking Press, 1943). Van Doren provides a detailed narrative of the Pennsylvania Line mutiny at Winter Camp in the 1780-81.↩