Item Description: Diary entry, 25 June 1863, written by Louis Leon, a Confederate soldier in the North Carolina Infantry. In it, Leon describes the town of Carlisle, PA, and his regiment’s march to Gettysburg.
Item Citation: From the Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier, CC970.78 L57d, North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Item Transcription:
June 25 – Marched on, passed through Leesburg, Canada, Hockinsville, and Centerville, all small villages. We got to Carlisle, Pa., at sundown. Marched 21 miles to-day. This city is certainly a beautiful place. It has 8,000 inhabitants, and we were treated very good by the ladies. They thought we would do as their soldiers do, burn every place we passed through, but when we told them the strict orders of General Lee they were rejoiced. Our regiment was provost guard in the city, but were relieved by the 21st Georgia Regiment, and we went to camp at the U. S. barracks. So far we have lived very good in the enemy’s country. We stayed here until the 30th, when we took the Baltimore pike road, crossed South Mountain at Holly Gap, passed through Papertown and Petersburg. We then left the Pike and took the Gettysburg road – 17 miles to-day. This has been a hard day for us, as we were the rear guard of the division, and it was very hot, close and very dusty, and a terrible job to keep the stragglers up.
