April 15
By: Clint Turbeville
On this day in 1863, Private Louis Leon (1841-1919) of the 53rd North Carolina Infantry, recorded the difficult experience of Confederate troops at the Siege of Washington, North Carolina: “[We] went through five miles of mud, water and it rained like fury…We fell in the mud several times, and were certainly beautiful objects to look at with our suits of mud.” A Jewish German immigrant that had arrived in the United States in 1857, Leon was clerking at a dry goods store in Charlotte when the war began. The 19-year-old seemed particularly motivated to defend Southern nationalism, originally volunteering in the 1st North Carolina (Six Months Regiment) within a week of Fort Sumter’s surrender in 1861. After his enlistment expired, he joined the 53rd North Carolina, where he found himself part of Major General Daniel Harvey Hill’s attempt to besiege Washington in the spring of 1863. Capturing Washington was only a part of Hill’s goal; his primary objective of the siege was to distract the enemy, draw Federal forces away from the Charleston Harbor, and collect much needed supplies from Beaufort County. Constructed six miles south of Washington was Fort Hill on the south bank of the Pamlico Sound, built with the intent to stop the Federal garrison from receiving reinforcements and supplies. For over two weeks Confederate batteries and Union defenses exchanged a sporadic yet heavy bombardment, along with skirmishes at the picket lines around the town. During Leon’s muddy march of April 15, a Union steamer evaded the cannon fire of Fort Hill and resupplied the Federal garrison at Washington. Believing the capture of Washington was no longer possible, Hill broke off the siege on April 18.
Picture of Louis Leon in 1913, fifty years
after his experience at Washington, NC.
Sources
Weymouth T. Jordan, Jr., comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 8:6-10; 1860 U.S. Census: Mecklenburg County; 1900 U.S. Census: Mecklenburg County; Charlotte Observer, July 1, 1919; Louis Leon, The Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier (Charlotte, NC: Stone Publishing Co, 1913), 23-24.
