EMERSON YARTAN -- 118th INFANTRYWENT TO CANADA FOR THE WAR - The Adjutant General's Report of 1865 isdisingenuous. It states that Emerson Yartan (Yattaw), who enlisted inChamplain on August 10, 1862, in Champlain to serve for three years andwho was mustered into Company I on August 20, was discharged on May 23,1865, at New York City.By his own admission on his Muster Roll Abstract, Emerson states that hedeserted to Canada soon after enlisting. President Lincoln'sproclamation of March 11, 1865, whose partial contents are listed below,gave amnesty to deserters and they were given Honorable Discharges....be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln. President of the United States,do issue this my proclamation, as required by said act, ordering andrequiting all deserters to return to their proper posts; and I do herebynotify them that all deserters who shall, within sixty days from thedate of this proclamation, viz, on or before the 10th day of May, 1865,return to service or report themselves to a provost-marshal shall bepardoned, on condition that they return to their regiments and companiesor to such other organizations as they may be assigned to and serve theremainder of their original terms of enlistment and in addition theretoa period equal to the time lost by desertion.In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal ofthe United States to be affixed.Done at the city of Washington, this 11th day of March A.D. 1865, and ofthe Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.Abraham LincolnYou can read the whole proclamation, which gives future restrictions tothe deserters, at:https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-124-offering-pardon-desertersEmerson rejoined his wife, Sophia, and his children after the war andresumed his occupation as blacksmith.
