Richard Henry Wilson

Richard Henry Wilson was born in Martinsburg, Virginia in 1829 before moving to Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a child.

During the Civil War, Wilson bravely served the Union Army under Southard’s Independent Company, a USCT unit which organized at Camp William Penn and operated between July 28, 1864, and November 14, 1864¹. Southard’s Independent was an emergency unit which never saw combat. This was not the extent of his service; USCT muster rolls list Wilson’s enrollment in the 24th United States Colored Infantry Regiment from at least February 1865 to September of that year². Wilson’s burial card is consistent with this information. The 24th USCI served at various locations throughout the DMV area until its disbandment in October 1865. 

Wilson lived a full life before passing away of consumption at the age of 70. His obituary in the Lewisburg Journal writes that his wife of many years, Sarah, and four children survived him⁴. Census records suggest the couple had at least six children, Georgianna, Mary, Alice, Blanche, John, and Henry, though his obituary states only four children survive him. The 1870 and 1880 censuses are inconsistent with one another, and it is possible that the family suffered the losses of several children⁵.

Wilson was remembered as a man of many crafts, namely that of a mechanic, brick maker, and janitor. A separate obituary in the Lewisburg chronicle reads:

“Henry Wilson, an aged, respected and well known colored man of this palace, died Friday morning of last week of consumption … .Henry Wilson was known to old and young. He has always been faithful to duty and has never known anything else but hard work. For 26 years he was employed at the Lewisburg brick yard, where in the early days of brick making he tramped the brick clay with his bare feet. For six years he worked at the car shops in Milton, walking there every day through winters’ storm and summers’ rain. He was last employed at the Bucknell Laboratory as janitor, where he was a general favorite among the students”.⁶

-Lily Hebda

1. Ancestry. National Park Service: U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865. Accessed 25 February 2026.
2. Ancestry. “U.S., Colored Troops Military Service Records, 1863-1865”. Accessed 25 February 2026.
3. Ancestry. “Pennsylvania Veterans Burial Cards, 1777-1999”. Accessed 26 February 2026.
4. Newspapers.com. “Death of R.H. Wilson”. (Lewisburg: The Lewisburg Journal. 29 May, 1896). Accessed 26 February 2026.
5. Ancestry. United States Federal Census, 1870-1880. Accessed 25 February 2026.
6. Newspapers.com. “Death of Henry Wilson”. (Lewisburg:The Lewisburg Chronicle, 30 May, 1896). Accessed 26 February 2026.