John Hovatter Wilt

In 1860 he was an 18 year old worker on his parent's farm near Philippi in Barbour County, VA. He enlisted there as a Private in Company K, 31st Virginia Infantry on 28 or 29 May 1861. He was wounded on 25 May 1862 at Winchester, VA and again on 21 August at Rappahannock Station, VA.

After Company K's Captain Phillips was wounded on 17 September 1862 at Sharpsburg, he remembered:

... after I gained the rear, I saw several prisoners being quartered back. I saw one man, (J.W. Wilt) taking ten back.

He was appointed 3rd Corporal, date not given, and was wounded for the third time, by a gunshot to his left arm, at Spotsylvania Court House, VA on 12 May 1864. He was in hospitals in Richmond, VA and on furlough to at least July 1864. He was in a Richmond hospital for wounds again in March 1865.

In 1880 he was a laborer in Clover in Tucker County, WV. By 1900 he was a farmer there.

His service from Ashcraft1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 via fold3. The quote above from Philip J. Kline's Diary of Captain John Riley Phillips, 31st Virginia Infantry, Confederate States of America, thanks to Ralph Parmenter Bennett; the diary was originally published in The Barbour Democrat from July to November 1968, under "History of Valley Furnace." Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860, 1880, and 1900. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Nancy Phillips (1846-1883) in January 1867 and they had 7 children. He married again, Rebecca Jane Stewart (1854-1940) in December 1884 and they had a daughter Olive. Rebecca and Olive were not living with John at the June 1900 US Census.

07/11/1841; Glade, VA

11/02/1908; Saint George, WV; burial in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Saint George, WV