This week in 1862

“Fellow soldiers: I want you to take warning by me, and seek salvation from the Lord before it is too late.  I am not guilty of the crime which I am condemned to death for.”

— William Lunt, convicted of desertion, firing squad, South Carolina.
Executed December 1, 1862

Lunt had a youthful behavior that one reporter wrote: “led him into every species of childish vice.”  He was convicted, while serving in the Ninth Regiment of Maine Volunteers, stole $250 from a prisoner’s wife and stole the watch of a major of a Florida regiment.  His real charge came when he was convicted of deserting to Confederate forces.  Where it was believed he divulged information that led to the death of one Yankee and the capture of several others.  “Not a blanch of the face nor a tremor of the frame,” the same reporter wrote of Lunt on the day of his death.