ELIHU, LYSANDER and WILLIAM J. WILSON -- 118th INFANTRYTHREE WILSONS FROM CHAZY - Twenty-six men named Wilson enlisted in Clinton County. Three of them enlisted in Chazy in the 118th Infantry. They were all descendants of Robert Wilson and Elizabeth Pallant from Suffolk in England though they were of different generations.The first to enlist was twenty-two-year-old Lysander, the son of Nathan Wilson and step-mother Celina Hubbard. He enlisted in Plattsburgh as the regiment was organizing. On March 28, 1863, Lysander was discharged for disability while they were at Camp Adirondack just north of the capitol in Washington and just before they sailed for the Siege of Suffolk. He came home and lived in Chazy for the rest of his life and died in 1920 after he was widowed in 1906.The second Wilson to enlist was Elihu Barton Wilson who was forty-four when he enlisted in December 1863 in Chazy. He received a town bounty of \$100 and a county bounty of \$200 for enlisting. On July 8, 1864, while on the Petersburg battlefield he was wounded and was discharged for disability in December. Elihu came home to his wife, Emily, and five children, and, after the birth of two more children, he moved to Hillsborough, NH, for work. He died in Nashua in 1884. Emily lived another thirty years and was buried beside him in the Woodlawn Cemetery.The youngest of the three Wilsons, William J. Wilson, enlisted in Chazy in January 1864, at eighteen years of age, and got a town bounty of \$150 and a county bounty of \$200. He managed to stay with the regiment for the rest of the war although he was in hospital from February 1865 and was sent home on furlough, finally mustering out on June 10, 1865, in Albany. When he returned home, he moved in with his widowed mother, the former Sarah Harrington, and several brothers and sisters and continued to farm.Lysander was in Company B and had gone home before the others, who were in Company I arrived. Elihu and William were only together for less than six months before Elihu was injured.
