[924] in December, 1861, and served with this command as a private and then as a non-commissioned officer, taking part in the campaign of General Bragg in Kentucky and Tennessee, until the battle of Chickamauga, where he was severely wounded, September 20, 1863. On his return home he resumed the publication of his paper, and in 1869 he and a partner purchased the Abbeville Banner, which he consolidated with his original paper under the name of the Abbeville Press and Banner. For the past fifteen years Mr. Wilson has been editor and proprietor of this paper, and is also a director of the Abbeville cotton mills. True to the memory of the lost cause, he is a member of Secession camp, U. C. V.
Lieutenant John Caldwell Wilson, born in Newberry county, S. C., June 27, 1834, is the son of John and Jane (Caldwell) Wilson, both natives of Newberry county. Both parents of Mr. Wilson died when he was but fourteen years of age, and he — then went to live with his uncle, James Caldwell, on whose farm in Newberry county he remained two years and then entered an academy in Newberry county, where he spent two years, after which he entered the junior class of Erskine college at the age of eighteen and graduated at twenty. He was engaged in teaching when the war cloud first began to gather on the horizon, and upon the first call for volunteers he enlisted in Company C, Third South Carolina regiment, as a private, and served with this same command throughout the war, leaving on April 14, 1861, and returning on May 12, 1865. He was made orderly-sergeant upon the first election of officers, declining at the time a second lieutenancy. In September, 1861, he was promoted to third lieutenant, later on to second lieutenant, and in November, 1863, to first lieutenant. From that time until the close of the war he was in command of his company, in the absence of the captain, who had been wounded and placed on light duty. He took part in the following prominent battles, besides numerous smaller ones: First Manassas, Williamsburg, Savage Station, Maryland Heights, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Knoxville, Bean Station, Wilderness, Spottsylvania, North Anna Bridge, Second Cold Harbor, siege of Petersburg, Cedar Creek, Averasboro and Bentonville, surrendering with Johnston's
