James Grant Wilson (April 28, 1832 – February 1, 1914) was an American general, editor, and author.

Biography

Wilson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He emigrated to New York City and then moved to Illinois. He was educated chiefly by private tutors and through travel in Europe. In 1857 he founded the Chicago Recorded, a journal of art and literature, and entered the Union Army late in 1862 as a major of the 15th Illinois Cavalry, commanded the 4th U.S.C. Cavalry as colonel, and left the Army in 1865 as a brevet brigadier general.

After the Civil War, he lived in New York where he became a well-known speaker, a frequent contributor to periodicals, president of the Society of American Authors, and, after 1885, of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. He edited Fitz-Greene Halleck's Poems (1868); A Memorial History of the City of New York (four volumes, 1892-93); Appleton's Cyclopœdia of American Biography (six volumes, 1887-89, with John Fiske; volume vii, 1900), an excellent book of reference; The Great Commanders Series (eighteen volumes, completed 1913); The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914 (four volumes, 1914), the work of many distinguished writers.

Wilson died in New York City and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York.

Selected works

• Biographical Sketches of Illinois Officers (1862-63)
• Life of Fitz-Greene Halleck (1869)
• Sketches of Illustrious Soldiers (1874)
• Poets and Poetry of Scotland (1876)
• Centennial History of the Diocese of New York, 1775-1885 (1886)
• Bryant and his Friends (1886)
• Commodore Isaac Hull and the Frigate Constitutiuon (1889)
• Love in Letters (1896)
• Life of General Grant (1897)
• Thackeray in the United States (two volumes, 1904)

See also

• List of American Civil War generals

References

• Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.

Notes

1. Eicher, pp. 573-74.