James H. Wilson
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James Harrison Wilson (September 2, 1837 – February 23, 1925) was a U.S. Army topographic engineer, a Union Army general in the American Civil War and later wars, a railroad executive, and author.
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[edit] Early life and engineering
Wilson was born in Shawneetown, Illinois. He attended McKendree College for a year and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1860, sixth in his class of 41, receiving a commission as a brevet second lieutenant in the Topographical Engineers. His initial assignment was assistant topographical engineer of the Department of Oregon at Fort Vancouver.
[edit] Civil War
[edit] Engineering assignments
After the start of the Civil War, Wilson received promotions to second and first lieutenant and became the topographical engineer for the Port Royal Expeditionary Force, from September 1861 to March 1862. As the topographical engineer for the Department of the South, he took part in the Battle of Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the Savannah River and received a brevet promotion to major in the Regular Army for his service. He transferred to the Army of the Potomac in April 1862 and served as its topographic engineer, but also as an aide-de-camp to Major General George B. McClellan. He served under McClellan during the Maryland Campaign and was present at the battles of South Mountain and Antietam.
Wilson was transferred to the Western Theater and joined Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee as a lieutenant colonel and topographical engineer. During the Vicksburg Campaign, he was the Inspector General of Grant's army. On October 30, 1863, he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers, the only officer ever promoted to troop command from Grant's regular staff. He continued on staff duty during the Battle of Chattanooga and was chief engineer of the force sent to relieve Knoxville under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman.
[edit] Cavalry commands
In 1864, Wilson switched from engineering to the cavalry. On February 17, 1864, he was assigned as chief of the Cavalry Bureau in Washington, D.C. He was an excellent administrator and organizer, but his true talents turned out to be as a combat leader. Grant promoted him to brevet major general on May 6, 1864, and had him assigned to command a division of cavalry under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, which he did with boldness and skill in numerous fights of the Overland Campaign and in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. However, just before Sheridan's decisive Battle of Cedar Creek in October 1864, Wilson was transferred back to the West to become chief of cavalry for the Military Division of the Mississippi under Sherman.
As cavalry chief, he trained Sherman's cavalry (under Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick) for the March to the Sea. Rather than accompanying Sherman, however, he and 17,000 troopers were attached to Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's Army of the Cumberland for the Franklin-Nashville Campaign in November and December 1864. His repulse of a flanking attack by Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was instrumental in saving the Union Army at the Battle of Franklin. He was promoted to brevet brigadier general in the Regular Army for his service in the Battle of Nashville. He led the successful Wilson's Raid through Alabama and Georgia, defeating the smaller force of Forrest and capturing Selma, Alabama, along with four other fortified cities. On Easter Day, 1865, his troops assaulted and captured the city of Columbus, Georgia, widely regarded as the final battle of the Civil War. His men did enormous damage to the military infrastructure of the South, but they did it with a sense of discipline that usually prevented looting and other collateral damage to civilian property. He was promoted to brevet major general in the Regular Army for his performance at Selma and received his full promotion to major general on May 6, 1865. The cavalrymen under Wilson's command captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis as he fled through Georgia in May 1865.
At the end of the war, Wilson reverted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was assigned to the newly created 35th U.S. Infantry, but his duty assignments continued to be in the Corps of Engineers until he resigned from the Army in December 1870.
[edit] Later life and wars
After he left the Army, Wilson worked as a railroad construction engineer and executive. He moved to Wilmington, Delaware, in 1883. For the next 15 years he devoted his time to business, travel, and public affairs, and wrote on a number of subjects.
Wilson returned to the Army in 1898 for the Spanish-American War, and served as a major general in Cuba and Puerto Rico. He also saw service in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1901. Retiring from the Army, in 1902 he represented President Theodore Roosevelt at the coronation of Edward VII of the United Kingdom.
Wilson died in Wilmington in 1925, with only three Civil War generals living longer.[1] He is buried in the Old Swedes Churchyard in Wilmington.
Wilson is not remembered as one of the great military leaders of the Civil War, and yet, some experts believe that oversight is because he was so ahead of his time. He developed a theory that, through superior firepower, cavalry, not infantry, could become the dominant force on the battlefield, something that flew in the face of two-thousand years of military convention. Up until Wilson, cavalry was used mainly for reconnaissance, to disrupt enemy communications and supply and to support the infantry. But with the advent of repeating rifles (particularly the Spencer) Wilson was able to create what was essentially "mounted infantry", meaning he could rush his troops to the point of battle faster than the enemy and then, with fewer men, hit the enemy with overwhelming firepower (able to fire 10-times faster than the Confederate muskets). Some military historians say if you take Wilson's doctrine of fast moving warfare and subsitute the words "tank" and "armored personnel carrier" for "cavalry" and "horse", it is essentially the exact same as today's modern doctrine of mechanized warfare. And Wilson targeted cities and industry for destruction. One historian says Wilson's idea to attack civilian targets with his fast moving mounted infantry was essentially "Blitzkrieg" some 80-years before World War II. Unfortunately, after the war, Wilson and his bold military doctrine were forgotten by the American Military. None of his works later became the basis for modern warfare. It all had to be reinvented during the 1930's and 1940's.
[edit] Works
- The Life of General U. S. Grant, General of the Armies of the United States (co-authored with Charles A. Dana, 1868)
- China: Travels and Investigations in the Middle Kingdom — a Study of its Civilization and Possibilities, with a Glance at Japan (1887)
- Life and Services of Brevet Brigadier-General Andrew Jonathan Alexander, United States Army (1887)
- Heroes of the Great Conflict: Life and Services of William Farrar Smith, Major General, United States Volunteers in the Civil War (1904)
- The Life of Charles A. Dana (1907)
- The Campaign of Chancellorsville (1911)
- Under the Old Flag: Recollections of Military Operations in the War for the Union, the Spanish War, the Boxer Rebellion, etc. (1912)
[edit] References
- Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
- Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders, Louisiana State University Press, 1964, ISBN 0-8071-0822-7.
- Library of Congress biography of Wilson
[edit] Notes
- ^ Warner, p. 568. Union Generals Nelson A. Miles, John R. Brooke, and Adelbert Ames lived longer.
