IDENTIFIED CASEY’S INFANTRY TACTICS OF LT. E.A. WILSON, BERDAN’S SHARPSHOOTERS, AT GETTYSBURG, CORPORAL TO 1st LIEUTENANT TWICE WIA

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Item Code: 2024-1968

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This is a good condition copy of volume 1 of Casey’s Infantry Tactics, officially adopted by the Army in August 1862 and this copy was printed by Van Nostrand that year. Volume 1 encompasses the School of the Soldier and Company, Instructions for Skirmishers and Music- the appropriate volume for the owner, who rose from corporal to 1st lieutenant and was commanding the company when they mustered out in 1864, “their last company commander – and a good one” remarked the regimental historian, and one of just six of the 101 original members of the company still in the ranks at muster out. The flyleaf is inscribed in old brown ink, somewhat blurred, but fully legible, “Was property of Capt. Edwin Alonzo Wilson of Berdan’s Sharpshooters Civil War” signed with a set of initials that appear to be H.E., who might be Hansen Evesmith, whose personal library stamp appears inside the back cover of the book. (His connection with Wilson is unclear, but seems to have been a mining engineer in Minnesota- the stamp also reads “Duluth and Fargo.”) The book is bound in green cloth and in good condition showing some wear, some slight waterstains, etc., but is solid and appears to be complete with its fold-out plates and illustrations. The inscription is in error about Wilson’s rank, though an obituary makes the same mistake. Records we have seen indicates he mustered out as first lieutenant. Perhaps the fact that he was commanding his company when mustered out elevated him in rank in the eyes of his family and friends.

He was born in Massena, NY, in 1834, by 1850 was living on the family farm in Pittsford, Michigan, gave his residence as Paw Paw, Michigan, and age as 26, when he enlisted at Detroit and mustered into Co. C of Berdan’s 1st US Sharpshooters as a corporal on 8/26/61. He made sergeant 2/28/63 and was promoted to 2nd lieutenant as of 5/3/63, the same day he was wounded slightly in the hand at Chancellorsville. He made 1st lieutenant 11/21/63, and was wounded a second time at Cold Harbor on 6/4/64. He mustered out near Petersburg 8/20/64. He returned to Michigan after muster out, married in 1868 and raised three children working as a farmer, working in a sawmill, and lastly as a foreman in a brewing company in Kansas. He died in 1914 at Iola, KS, apparently widowed and living in a veterans’ home there in his final years.

As one of the war’s most famous units, Berdan’s Sharpshooters won’t need an introduction and Wilson seems to have been in the thick of things- wounded at Chancellorsville and again at Cold Harbor. He was also on the field at Gettsyburg. A July 5 letter from him to father of his friend, Lt. G.W. Sheldon, who was killed in the battle, described his death on July 2 in the reconnaissance to Pitzer’s Woods and Wilson’s recovery of his body on July 4, when he was assigned to lead the regiment’s burial detail.

This is accompanied by a modern copy photo of Wilson. We do not know the ultimate source for the image, but it also appears in an online blog along with the text of Wilson’s letter to Sheldon’s father. He is shown seated, waist up, wearing a frock coat with 1st Lieutenant straps. [sr] [ph:L]

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