joined the army, entering the Second Regiment Louisiana Native Guard Volunteers as a private. He served in several positions in this regiment, which so distinguished itself during the siege of Port Hudson, in 1863. He continued in the army until 1864, when he was furloughed from the Hilton Head South Carolina hospital. After spending a few weeks with friends in New Bedford, he entered the Massachusetts General Hospital at Boston, from which he was discharged from the army.
He returned to Norfolk, Virginia, in September, and entered the secret service of the Government, operating with his squad on the Elizabeth and James rivers, and in front of Richmond with the army of the James. In December of the same year he took part in the battles of Fort Fisher and Petersburg, becoming so disabled by wounds as to leave the service entirely. In March of the following year he had charge of the Government supply store, at Norfolk, Va.
After the Surrender he began the mercantile business, and managed a large fruit store. In the meantime, with the fall of Richmond and the disbanding of the Army of the James, The True Southerner was moved to Norfolk, where the local columns of the paper were placed under the editorship of Col. Wilson, through whose energy the paper acquired a large circulation. The following September, Col. White, its publisher, gave him full charge of the journal, with its six thousand and two hundred subscribers, which he continued to edit until a mob, in 1866, broke in and destroyed the office and its contents. In August, 1867, he was placed in charge of The Union Republican office at Petersburg. These papers were owned entirely by white men, many of whom became prominent office holders in the State and Federal Governments.
Wilson had assumed a very important position in 1867, in the organization of the Republican party, and is remembered
