The troops that were "deserting" weren't straggling in line of battle. It is hard to straggle when you are in a trench earth work. Secondly those "deserters" were from South and North Carolina running home to stop Sherman's torches.
I confess that as a former soldier, I judge the desperate by what they do when desparate.
Example, Joachim Peipfier of 1st SS had some 88 US soldiers murdered at Malmedy. I give him no points for being desparate. His unit also killed about 325 Belgian civilians in that attack too.
Of course he was following orders, like you say no Southern soldier would do for Lee.
So by that token I guess we can't judge a desperate Hitler in the final weeks of the war, ordering POWs and concentration camp inmates onto death marches that weren't necessary either, right?
The southern deserters would have been better off stopping Hood’s and Wheeler’s torches. Hood burned more of Atlanta than Sherman, if only because he got first chance to burn the city.
Southern deserters burned many homes and farms that Sherman never reached. Pretended confederate defenders slashed the fire hoses in Richmond and other southern cities to prevent fires they set from being extinguished. That way the US Army forces would be busy putting out the fire, and the pretended confederates would free to get away.