Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/842

802 the organization of a company, of which he was elected captain and which was assigned to the Sixth regiment, North Carolina troops, commanded by Col. Charles F. Fisher, president of the North Carolina railroad. His company was organized in the Haw River region of Alamance county, where Captain Wilson had spent his boy hood days, and was distinguished for its esprit du corps. Fisher s regiment was the first to re-enlist for the war and Wilson s was the first company of the regiment to take this patriotic obligation. Captain Wilson was in battle at First Manassas, where Colonel Fisher was killed, and remained in that vicinity until the spring of 1862, when he participated in the engagements at Williamsburg and Seven Pines and the Seven Days campaign before Richmond. He subsequently took part in the battles of Second Manassas, at Harper s Ferry was detailed to bring up the artillery to the summit of Maryland heights, and at Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg did gallant duty. Soon afterward he was appointed to the staff of General Ramseur, and in this capacity he served at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. After taking part in the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor and the battles before Petersburg, until the fall of 1864, he was put in charge of transportation, at Morganton, N. C., and at the same time was appointed superintendent of the Western North Carolina railroad by Governor Vance. In 1876 he was elected president of this railroad company by a board of directors appointed by Governor Vance, and in 1880 became chief engineer under the Richmond & Danville railroad management. The line of the Western North Carolina railroad, from Old Fort to the western portal of the Swananoa tunnel, winding as it does through the steeps of the Blue ridge mountains, is a triumph of engineering skill in great part due to the genius of Major Wilson. Though Mr. McCalla first projected the way, it was Wilson who overcame all the difficulties, and is justly entitled to the credit for the magnificent result. In 1887 he became chief engineer of the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap & Louisville railroad, which he held until 1891, when he was made chairman of the railroad commission of North Carolina. At present he is interested in manufacturing at Weldon and resides in a beautiful home at Morganton. He has several times represented his