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 JAMES HARRISON WILSON ILSON, JAMES HARRISON, eminent American soldier, renowned for his service as division and corps commander of cavalry in the Civil war; as effecting the capture of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate states; as corps commander in the Spanish-American war; as commander of cooperative American and British troops and commander of American troops in Peking, China; as representative of the United States army at the coronation of King Edward VII.; as a distinguished military biographer, a skilled railroad engineer and a useful man of affairs—was born on a farm near Shawneetown, Gallatin county, Illinois, September 2, 1837. His father, Harrison Wilson, was an ensign in the War of 1812, and captain in the Black Hawk war; and married Katharine Schneider and settled on a farm in Shawneetown, Illinois. He was a man of strong, vigorous, independent character, self reliant, and courageous. His grandfather, Alexander Wilson, a native of Culpeper county, Virginia, removed to Fayette county, Kentucky, and thence to Gallatin county, Illinois, which county he represented in the first territorial legislature. He was one of the founders of that state government. He married Elinor Harrison. His great great grandfather, Isaac G. Wilson, was a sergeant in the Virginia Line during the American revolution, a citizen of Front Royal, Culpeper county, Virginia.

James Harrison Wilson was brought up on his father's farm, in Shawneetown, and when his father died, in 1853, he had attended school sufficiently to enable him to matriculate at McKendree college. He paid his way at college from accumulated earnings as a clerk. He was appointed a cadet at the United States military academy in 1855, was graduated sixth in the five-year class of 1860, was assigned to the topographical engineers as brevet second lieutenant, and served in Washington Territory. He was promoted to second lieutenant, was ordered to Boston to recruit engineer soldiers in 1861 and made chief topographical engineer of the Port Royal expedition taking part in the siege and capture of Fort Pulaski and of James Island,