The regiment left their Sudley Springs camp at sunrise on Sept. 3 and marched northwest all day, 22 miles, arriving at Leesburg at 5 p.m.

“Many of the citizens met us several miles from town,” quartermaster clerk William H. Hill wrote in his diary, “and gave the brigade a cordial welcome home. They all seemed to be rejoiced at the reoccupation of the country by our Army and their deliverance from Yankee rule.”

“After an arduous march of five days on three days rations,” Spartan Band Private Albert Wymer Henley recorded, “the hospitable inhabitants [opened] their dwellings to every soldier.”

They put up their tents at their old Camp Carolina near the Double Springs and rested on Thursday, Sept. 4.

“The citizens visited us in large numbers,” Hill continued, “and a large number invited us to their homes.”

And there they remained, resting with little to do but be fed by Leesburg residents, until Sept. 6 when they would follow the rest of the army in crossing the Potomac River into Maryland.