Open main menu
Open main menu
J.H. Wilson
(1837 - 1871)
Home State: Illinois
Education: US Military Academy, West Point, NY, Class of 1860;Class Rank: 6th
Branch of Service: Engineers
Unit: Army of the Potomac
Before Antietam
He graduated from West Point in July 1860, was brevetted 2nd Lieutenant, Topographical Engineers, then commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on 10 June 1861. He was promoted to First Lieutenant on 9 September 1861. He was in the Department of the South and on the siege of Ft. Pulaski, GA to April 1862.
On the Campaign
He was an acting aide-de-camp on General McClellan's staff on the Maryland Campaign on 1862.
The rest of the War
He was appointed Lieutenant Colonel, Staff, US Volunteers on 8 November 1862, assigned as Chief Topographical Engineer of the Army of the Tennessee to March 1863, and as Engineer and Assistant Inspector General to October 1863 (promoted to Captain, Corps of Engineers on 7 May 1863). He was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers on 31 October 1863 and led a Brigade in Tennessee. He was briefly at the Cavalry Bureau in Washington in early 1864 then commanded the 3rd Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac to August 1864. He then led the Cavalry Corps of the of the Military Division of the Mississippi into June 1865, having been promoted to Major General of Volunteers on 20 April 1865.
After the War
He mustered out of Volunteer service on 8 January 1866 and continued in the Regular Army. He was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the 35th US Infantry on 28 June 1866 and was honorably discharged at his own request on 31 December 1870.
He was a civil engineer and Vice President of the St. Louis and Southeastern Railroad, supervised engineering projects on the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, and worked on elevated rail in New York City (1870-76). He was GM and later President of the New York and New England Railway (1878-83).
He was back in uniform for the Spanish-American War, commissioned Major General of Volunteers on 4 May 1898, and commanded the 6th Army Corps in Puerto Rico and the First Corps in Cuba. He commanded a Department in Cuba to July 1900, then volunteered for the China Relief Expedition and commanded American troops in Peking to December 1901. He was retired at the rank of Brigadier General, USA to date from 2 March 1901.
He was afterward again a railroad man and corporate officer, and represented the US Army at the coronation of King Edward VII of England in 1902.
References & notes
His service from Heitman1 and Cullum;2 his Cullum number is 1852. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a group photograph of General Sheridan's officers in about 1864.
Birth
09/02/1837 in IL
Death
02/23/1925; Wilmington, DE; burial in Old Swedes Churchyard, Wilmington, DE
1 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, pg. 1046 [AotW citation 29073]
2 Cullum, George Washington, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the US Military Academy, 2nd Edition, 3 vols., New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1868-79, Vol. II, pp. 740-742; Vol. IV, pg. 117 [AotW citation 29074]