James Wilson
Wilson, a Union general from Illinois, graduated from West Point in 1860. The first three years of the war were primarily spent in engineering duties with George McClellan and U.S. Grant and then William T. Sherman. In February, 1864 he made a switch to cavalry and served under Philip Sheridan in Virginia. In October he became chief of cavalry for Sherman in the western theater. His cavalry helped stop John B. Hood at Nashville, overwhelmed Nathan B. Forrest's cavalry at Selma, Alabama in 1865 and swept through the south ending at Macon, Georgia on April 20, 1865. Wilson retired from the army in 1870, but returned in 1898 and served as a major general of volunteers in the Spanish-American War. He also took part in the 1901 Boxer Rebellion in China. James Wilson died in 1925, survived by only three other civil war generals.Source: "Generals in Blue." Warner, Ezra J.
