Glenn

It does seem that that Joseph Land may well have galvanized. The "Deserted to the Enemy" does not necessarily mean that, because I have run into several cases in Confederate records where soldiers were captured by the enemy while on picket duty or some other simular detached function and were assumed to be deserters. But the company 1st Sargeants, who made those records, were usually pretty good investigators, because they were close to their men.

So if Joseph Land did desert he would have most likely been "drafted", so to speak, into the Union Army. To "desert to the enemy" did not mean that you were out of the War. He would not have shown up on any P.O.W. records if he actually deserted and enlisted in the Union Army. As I stated before because if he were used in the Virginia Theater against the troops he deserted from and was captured by the Confederates, and found out, he would have been shot as a traitor, per the Confederate States Constitution.

Therefore the Union Army practice to encourage more desertions and to lessen the need for soldiers on the frontier to fight the plains Indians was to sent these galvanized soldiers to either Fort Leavenworth, or Fort Riley, Kansas. I would think that maybe Joseph Land didn't want to get that far away from civilization as the Dakota's territories, Montana or Wyoming.

The 1st Indiana Cavalry was itself closely associated with Kansas Cavalry troops primarily being brigaded most of the time with the 5th Kansas Cavalry. So therein is a Kansas Indiana Connection. The 1st Indiana Cavalry was also an under strenght unit most of the time with two companies ("I" & "K") detached in the Army of the Potomac (Virginia Theater) and another company ("C") to Gen. Hovey in Mississippi (Western Theater) while the majority of the regiment served in Arkansas, (the Trans-Mississippi Theater). At one time the 1st Indiana Cavalry served in all 3 theaters of war at the same time, as I understand it. Which is very unusual.

As far as the family thinking that Joseph died during the war. Whether Joseph actually died or not was probably irreliment to them. After such actions the family probably did not wish to have any further contact with Joseph. Deserting to go home and take care of ones family was one thing in the south, but deserting to the enemy was a different matter. Again you didn't have the right to choose you side because of the politics, in those days your loyalities belonged to your homeland.

It does seem that the case of Joseph Land is unique. You may well be on the right track. There are enough parallels here for your research to be reasonable, even if it may not be proveable.