Thin silver shield shaped pin with a finely decorated border of delicate lines and dots with folate in the three upper bastions of the shield. Engraved on the face is “O. S. / N. G. WILSON / CO. G / 138^TH REGT. PA. V. / ADAMS CO. PA. / WAR OF 1861.” The pin belonged to Orderly Sergeant Nicholas Wilson from Bendersville, Pa. which is located just north of Gettysburg.

Reverse of the pin retains its “T” bar pin.

Pin surface has tarnished with age and the face has a minor vertical bend.

Nicholas G. Wilson enlisted as 1^st Sergeant in Company G, 138^th Pennsylvania Infantry on August 23, 1862.

Wilson served with his regiment in the Middle Department at Baltimore and Harpers Ferry until the pursuit of Lee after Gettysburg when it was assigned to the 3^rd Corps of the Army of the Potomac and upon the dissolution of that Corps was assigned to the 6^th Corps.

The 138^th participated in Grant’s Overland campaign and was heavily engaged in the Wilderness where they suffered a loss of 132 men killed, died of wounds and captured. They were lightly engaged at Spotsylvania but once again lost heavily at Cold Harbor.

During Confederate General Jubal Early’s northward movement in 1864 the 138^th, along with its Corps, engaged the Confederates at Monocacy, Maryland. During that engagement 1^st Sergeant Wilson was shot in the right hand totally losing the second and third fingers. He was sent to a hospital at Annapolis, Maryland and eventually transferred to a hospital in York, Pennsylvania. He was still in a hospital recovering when he was mustered out on June 23, 1865.

After the war, he held the position of superintendent of the Gettysburg National Cemetery for fifteen years, after which he headed the Battlefield Memorial Association until the Federal government took control. He served a term as secretary of Skelly Post No. 9, G.A.R. and was elected to the state legislature. Death came either from complications of injuries sustained in a fall or "organic heart trouble.”  [AD]

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