Kathy,
Don’t be too harsh on your ancestor. The prospect of becoming a statistic of attrition while facing a much larger, better fed, and better equipped army led, after months in the trenches of Petersburg, many a tried and true man to make what must have been a heart-wrenching decision. Just a couple of days after Collins crossed over, Lee wrote in a dispatch to Richmond, “Hundreds of men are deserting nightly, and I cannot keep the army together unless examples are made of such cases.” A couple of days later he reported 1,094 desertions in the 10 day period from Feb. 15-25, and said, “I am convinced, as already stated to you, that it proceeds from the discouraging sentiment out of the army, which, unless it can be changed, will bring us calamity. This defection in troops who have acted so nobly and borne so much is so distressing to me that I have thought proper to give you the particulars.”