Captain John Wilson, 8th Kentucky Infantry, Archive Including Whole Plate Ambrotype 

A fine historical group relating to Captain John Wilson, Co. C, 8th Kentucky Infantry, immortalized as the first Union volunteer to plant the regiment’s battle flag on the summit of Lookout Mountain on November 24, 1863, during the epic “Battle of the Clouds.” Having descended in the family, this cameo material is highlighted by a superlative wartime whole plate ambrotype of Captain John Wilson (1822-1896) posed in uniform and sword together with a selection of corresponding photographs, a Confederate knife, personal items, letters, and ephemera. Bringing the group to life is a 2 in. binder of extensive Wilson-Richardson family genealogy reflecting the history of Estill County, KY. Packed with rich anecdotal information compiled mostly by a descendant named John E. Wilson (1888-1972), the typed volume was later edited and written by Grover C. Wilson, a younger brother, in the early 1970s—both men proud grandsons of the esteemed Captain Wilson.

Aside from the singular military ambrotype, the lot includes a large Confederate knife with clip-point blade. The blade measures 17.5 in. long, 22.75 in. overall. Captain Wilson’s Waltham 18, OF, SW pocket watch in an unmarked silveroid case also accompanies the lot. The back of the case is appropriately engraved with the stock eagle, flag, and star symbol of the GAR. Another personal item is a thin coppery-red gold (unmarked) suspension badge with H. Wilson engraved on the top bar. The lower circular planchet bordered with an engraved wreath is slightly larger than a quarter and commemorates the Shortest Time Graduate/1885/Commercial College Kentucky University. 

One piece reflecting Captain Wilson’s historical fame is a late 19th century Lookout Mountain souvenir spoon, a popular collectible through the early 20th century. The highly embellished 5.5 in. spoon is marked Sterling, heralding the Battle Above the Clouds, with raised busts of Union General Hooker and Confederate General Walthall beneath a spread eagle handle. Additionally, the lot includes a 1946 souvenir booklet from the Lookout Mountain battlefield with the cover showing the iconic photograph of Captain Wilson holding the flag of the 8th Kentucky on the precipice with his squad of volunteers. The same rousing photograph is duplicated in cabinet card format along with another cabinet card (also by photographer R.M. Linn) showing Captain Wilson and his men ascending the slope of Lookout Mountain in a reenactment. Other photographs include a cabinet card copy shot of the whole plate ambrotype along with a black and gold memorial card with annotations from Captain Wilson’s funeral in 1896. An original printed memorial tribute dated Washington, D.C., June 2, 1896, survives from the Congressional reading of same. Also, a handful of later 20th century (aerial) shots of Lookout Mountain and vicinity with a 1930s era Brownie photograph of the captain’s obelisk towering over his lonely grave near Station Camp, KY. Also included are two sixth plate daguerreotypes. One image depicts a pair of children thought to be Mollie Wilson, the eldest of Captain Wilson’s children, seated with her younger brother Theodore. The other plate of a man and woman housed in a double case is unidentified.

A series of twenty letters (14 with covers) dating between 1863 and 1873 are addressed to Miss Mollie Wilson from friends and acquaintances including many from a cousin. Six of the letters are war dated from 1863-65. The letters contain content regarding church and the well-being of family members from the perspective of youth. Born in the “late 1850s” Mollie Wilson-Maupin was the captain’s oldest child. Another letter preserved from 1895 addressed to Captain Wilson from a political operative asks to leverage Wilson’s influence and support in the upcoming 1896 general election. A 1904 “Notification of Allowance” on United States Department of Treasury letterhead finally reconciled a $27.05 payment due Captain Wilson’s estate leftover from his discharge in 1864, forty years earlier. A number of original and copies of pre-printed “Parent’s Records” complement the genealogy. One interesting bit of ephemera is a letter size piece of stationary with the heading, Miller Bros. 101 Ranch/Motion Picture Department/Presents/Buffalo Bill’s Last Performance/Season of 1916, dated June 6, 1917.

“The Hero of Lookout Mountain.”

John Wilson was nearly forty years old when he was commissioned Captain of Company C, 8th Kentucky Infantry on January 15, 1862. The regiment was composed of Estill County men and had already experienced considerable action at Perryville, Stone’s River, the Tullahoma Campaign, and Chickamauga before joining the Siege of Chattanooga and there attaining immortality at the battle of Missionary Ridge. Carrying the national colors stitched by the women of Estill County, Captain Wilson and his brave band of five volunteers ascended Lookout Mountain and were officially recognized as the first to raise the U.S. flag on the summit. In his own words Captain Wilson later described the momentous event:

We were placed in one of the columns on the extreme right that marched around the palisades of Lookout Mountain on the 24th of November. We marched around the nose or point of the mountain and lay that night above the Craven House. Just before daylight on the 25th. Gen. Whitaker [Brig. Gen. Walter C. Whitaker of Kentucky] came to our regiment and said [to Col. Sidney M. Barnes]: “Col. Barnes, have you an officer that will volunteer to carry your flag and place it on the top of the Mountain?” I said, “General, I will go.” Turning to the regiment, he said, “How many of you will go with Capt. Wilson? I could order you up there, but will not, for it is a hazardous undertaking; but for the flag that gets there first it will be an honor.”

Five men went with me. I handed my sword to my Color-Sergeant to bring up, and I took the flag and started, accompanied by Sergeant James Wood, Company H; Private William Witt, Company A; Sergeant Harris H. Davis, Company E; Sergeant Joseph Wagers, Company B; and Private Joseph Bradley, Company I.

Those who have seen the awe-inspiring precipice at the top of the great mountain can realize what a serious undertaking was before us, not to mention our lack of knowledge concerning the Confederates, who the day before had held Hooker at bay. Dim daylight was dawning. We crept cautiously upward, clutching at rocks and bush, supporting each other, using sticks and poles and such other aids as we could gather. At every step we expected to be greeted with deadly missiles of some sort from the enemy. But fortune favored us, and before sun-up, I, in front, reached the summit and planted the flag on top of Lookout Mountain. It was the highest flag that was planted during the war. Soon other detachments came up and congratulated me and my party, and we were the lions of the day in the Union Army.

“The Heroes of Lookout Mountain” received a litany of praise and formal recognition including that of commanding General Thomas who granted a special thirty day furlough for their “gallant and heroic conduct.” The celebrated Lookout Mountain photographer Royan M. Linn had the group re-enact the scene twice, and captured the grandiose stance of Captain Wilson holding the flag while doffing his hat for posterity (see The Struggle for Chattanooga by Baumgartner & Strayer, p. 264-265). The feat is amply recorded in the Official Records complete with four pages of small print individual reports and testimonials by a litany of ranking officers concerned. Grover Wilson’s treasury of genealogical information contains photocopies of local Kentucky newspaper accounts commemorating Captain Wilson coinciding with the 1963 centennial of the battle. Simultaneously, several Kentucky roadside monuments and markers were dedicated to Captain Wilson. Shortly after his death in 1896 the Captain received an honor rarely conferred: a “Tribute to the memory of Captain John Wilson” was read into the Congressional Record on June 6, 1896, an original copy of which is included in the group.

Following Missionary Ridge, the 8th Kentucky was afforded light duty for the duration of their enlistment. The regiment remained active but in garrison at Chattanooga where Captain Wilson mustered out, time expired, on November 17, 1864. One biography refers to him as a prosperous “farmer and stock-grower of Station Camp” after the war. In later years, he became a dealer in “general merchandise” as well. Captain Wilson married Sarah A. Bowman (1826-1900) on January 26, 1846 and twelve children were born, seven of whom were living in 1887. “Captain John” died at age 74 on May 24, 1896, and was buried in the Wilson grave-yard near Camp Station, KY, on the present Newton farm. Sarah followed John to the rural family plot on July 1, 1900.

Long separated from the captain’s magnificent ambrotype are other tantalizing wartime “items of personal effects.” Parenthetically, two sections from Grover C. Wilson’s massive genealogy prompt palpitations among ardent collectors. Page 126-b-g discusses the fate of the 8th Kentucky flag that flew over Lookout Mountain. The “cased flag” was treated with reverence and remained with Captain Wilson until his death in 1896. Afterwards, the surviving children agreed to rotate guardianship in three-year increments. An Uncle Al Wilson happen to be in possession of the flag when he died and the heirloom was then surreptitiously kept by his oldest daughter, Sophia Wilson McPheters, until she “donated’ the flag to an unspecified woman’s group in Paris, KY. It is written that at some later date, Sophia had a change of heart and with legal help succeeded in having the flag returned to her, although nowhere is this ever conclusively confirmed. As recently as September 1969, the flag was apparently held in the “safe-keeping and custody” of yet another (or possibly the same?) organization, the Royal Daughters of the American Revolution, also in Paris, KY. Concurrently, another version from a different Wilson family member placed the flag “in a vault of a bank in Irvine, or possibly Richmond (KY).” Conscious of family diplomacy, descendant and genealogist Grover C. Wilson now turned detective concluded in his writing that as of (about) July 1972, the flag had gone missing. In contemplating the family legacy, Grover, given impetus by his deceased brother John, had hoped to put the historic flag on public display. Inquiries directed to Sophia—and her lawyer—were apparently inconclusive if not evasive. For reasons unknown speculation by “the other heirs” as to the current whereabouts of the flag (around 1973) was deliberately obscured, whited-out of the family genealogy on p.126-g.

Page 126-h states that Captain Wilson’s “uniform, head-gear and sword were kept together by the different members of the family for many years after Captain John’s death in 1896.” By 1972 Grover Wilson believed that the cloth no longer existed, having been “eaten away in their entirety.” The sword was still known and, in fact, owned by the son of an extended family member (named) who “lives in the west.” A trunk used by Captain Wilson during the war was in the possession of another Wilson family member living in Fayetteville, NC.

Whole plate is EXC. Housed in a rare Landing of Columbus Union case (Krainik 1), also pristine. Pocket watch with slight wear to GAR motif on back; the watch is not working and runs only irregularly.