PLESS & WINBORNE
LAWYERS
MARION, NORTH CAROLINA

Jan. 30, 1919.

Gov. T. W. Bickett,
Raleigh, N.C.

My dear Governor:-

I am enclosing copy of letter I have today written to the Adjutant General, Royster, relative to deserters. While the War was on you were very zealous and considerate of the young men who were deserters. The Local Board for McDowell County, of which I was then a member, endeavored in everyway to carry out your offer to these men, and tried in everyway to get them to come in and go into the Service and take their chances with the patriotic young men and make good. I made the statement at every opportunity I had and it was general propaganda that if these men would come in they would be accepted into the Service, but if they waited until after the War was over, they would be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary. Warning was given to them that they would not be treated as deserters in the Confederate cause - there would be a Government to punish them, and they would be punished.

I feel that their discharge amounts to premium for desertion. Today I saw on the streets here two of these deserters on their way from Camp, one of them wearing soldier’s overcoat which he had evidently acquired at the Camp.

I am writing this letter to you to ask that you enter protest with the War Department against permitting freedom to these “wilful deserters.”

With my high regards, I am

Yours very truly,

J. W. Winborne