Private Leon was a Jew who served in Company B,
53rd NC. My great grandfather and great uncle served in Company C. Many
years ago I was advertising in the Confederate Veteran for information
concerning this regiment, and I was sent Private Leon's diary by a
gentleman in NC. I, in turn, sent it from California back to NC for Mr.
Weymouth Jordan in the Division of Archives and History. He replied
stating that he had never seen such, and after reading it over the
weekend was certain he would use it. Fortunately, it was just in time to
be included in Volume XIII, NC Troops published in 1993, and Private
Leon is quoted extensively. Mr. Jordan also included some of the
information I provided concerning my family.
Private Leon's diary was published later, and his last words bear repeating.
"When I commenced this diary, of my life as a Confederate soldier I was
full of hope for the speedy termination of the War, and our
independence.
I was not quite nineteen years old. I am now twenty-three. The four
years that I have given to my country, I do not regret, nor am I sorry
for one day that I have given - my only regret is that we have lost that
for which we fought. Nor do I for one minute think that we lost it by
any other way than by being outnumbered at least five, if not ten to
one. The world was open to the enemy, but shut out to us. I shall now
close this diary in sorrow, but to the last I will say that, although
but a private, I still say our Cause was just, nor do I regret one thing
that I have done to cripple the North."
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North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial
“The Official Website of the North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission”
Patriots of ’61 – Private Louis Leon of Mecklenburg
A
German immigrant of the Jewish faith, Private Louis Leon was not
unusual as a Confederate soldier from North Carolina. Captain
Cornehlson raised the German Volunteers in Wilmington in 1861, which
became Company A of the Eighteenth North Carolina. Of the 102 men in
Company A, every officer and every enlisted man but 30 had been born in
Germany and volunteered to fight to defend North Carolina and the
Southern Confederacy.
Lewis Leon of Mecklenburg, Sharpshooter Versus Sharpshooter
“Lewis
Leon, a well-known resident of Wilmington and a veteran of Confederate
States service, was born in Mecklenburg, Germany, November 27, 1841.
Three years later he was brought by his parents to New York City, whence
he moved to Charlotte in 1858, and engaged in mercantile pursuits as a
clerk. Becoming a member of the Charlotte Grays, he entered the active
service of that command, going to the camp of instruction at Raleigh on
April 21, 1861.
The
Gray’s were assigned to Col. D.H. Hill’s regiment, the First, as
Company C, and took part in the Battle of Big Bethel, in which Private
Leon was a participant. At the expiration of the six months’ enlistment
of the Bethel Regiment, he reenlisted in Company B [of] Capt. Harvey
White, of the Fifty-first Regiment, commanded by Col. William Owen.
He
shared the service of this regiment in its subsequent honorable career,
fighting at Gettysburg, Bristow Station, Mine Run, and the Wilderness,
receiving a slight wound at Gettysburg but not allowing it to interfere
with his duty. During the larger part of his service he was a
sharpshooter.
On the 5th or 6th
of May, 1864, the sharpshooters of his regiment were much annoyed by
one of the Federal sharpshooters who had a long range rifle and who had
climbed up a tall tree, from which he could pick off the men, though
sheltered by stumps and stones, himself out of range of their guns.
Private
Leon concluded that “this thing had to be stopped,” and taking
advantage of every knoll, hollow and stump, he crawled near enough for
his rifle to reach, and took a “pop” at this disturber of the peace, who
came tumbling down. Upon running up to his victim, Leon discovered him
to be a Canadian Indian, and clutching his scalp lock, he dragged him
back to the Confederate line.
At
the Battle of the Wilderness he was captured, and from that time until
June, 1865, he was a prisoner of war at Point Lookout and Elmira, N.Y.
Upon being paroled he visited his parents in New York City, and then
worked his way back to North Carolina.
He
is warmly regarded by his comrades of Cape Fear Camp, U.C.V., and has
served several terms as its adjutant. When Col. James T. Morehead
prepared a sketch of his regiment, the Fifty-third, Private Leon
furnished him with a copy of a diary which he had kept from the
organization of the regiment up to the 5th of May, 1864, when he was captured.
(Chronicles of the Cape Fear River, James Sprunt, Edwards & Broughton, 1916, pp. 334-335)
