Gen. 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.