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AUTHOR:  James Paris

A forty-seven-year-old resident of Union County, NC, John Newton Wilson Sr. enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army on July 4, 1862 in Rowan County. He served in Company H of the 57th Infantry, North Carolina alongside his son, George MacKinnon “Mack” Wilson.

According to his military records, John was promoted to Corporal (Full, Vol) on Nov. 15, 1862. About a year later, on Nov. 7, 1863, he was captured at Rappahannock Station, Virginia and confined at Point Lookout, Maryland a few days later. His son had been taken prisoner at Rappahannock Station, too. Both men got smallpox while imprisoned, but while the younger Wilson recovered, the elder did not. John “died of disease” on Dec. 31, 1863 at Lookout Point, Maryland, and he was buried in a mass grave.

A memorial for him is located at the Arlington Baptist Church Cemetery in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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