Major General Wilson was born in Illinois in 1837 and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point just prior to the start of the Civil War. He served as a Union cavalry commander, and during this service he captured Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Wilson became a major general of volunteers in the Puerto Rican campaign against the Spanish, and was involved in fighting in the center of the island, near Coamo and Aibonito.
