Primarily describes events in Virginia, however from Feb.-May 1863 the author was in eastern North Carolina, including Kinston, New Bern, Washington, Wilson, Rocky Mount, Tarboro, Greenville, and Goldsboro.

This is not the diary of a lieutenant or general, but instead that of an ordinary private. Leon Louis, at the age of nineteen, signed up to join the First North Carolina Regiment in 1861 and remained with them for six months before being mustered into the Fifty-Third North Carolina Regiment until the end of the war. He was not involved in strategic discussions or decisions but he was one of the many thousands who unquestioningly put their lives on the line for the cause of the confederacy. He reveals in stark prose the day to day drudgery of the war, from cutting down trees for the preparation of defences to creating bedding from collected leaves, which he described as 'a bed fit for a king or a Confederate soldier.' Louis saw conflict at number of occasions throughout the war including the Battle of the Wilderness where he was captured by the Union army. He spent the rest of the war in prison and details his life in those camps, but also gives details of the continuing action of the Fifty-Third Regiment from other sources until the end of the war. Also included in Leon's account are details of all the men who fought in the two regiments that he served with. Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate provides an insight into the life of an ordinary soldier fighting for the South during the American Civil War. After the War Leon was actively involved in the organization "United Confederate Veterans" in which he became a major. This diary was published in 1913 and he died in 1919. There is a monument in Charlotte, North Carolina, honoring him and the twelve other Jewish Confederate soldiers who are buried in the Hebrew Cemetery.

Excerpt from Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier This diary was commenced for the fun of writing down my experience as a soldier from the Old North State. I never thought for a moment that I would put it in print; but now that I am getting old and have read so many histories written by our officers, but have never seen in print a history written by a private. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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