John Thomas Wilder

John Thomas Wilder was born January 31, 1830, in Hunter Village, Greene County, New York. He served as an apprenticed draftsman in a millwright plant in Columbus, Ohio. Later, he was a foundryman and millwright in Greensburg, Indiana. He enlisted in the 1st Independent Battery as a private on April 21, 1861, and was elected captain the next day. Governor Oliver P. Morton appointed Wilder lieutenant colonel of the 17th Indiana Volunteer Infantry on March June 12, 1861, and he advanced to colonel March 2, 1862. His first action was with D. C. Buell’s army on the second day at Shiloh. He was then given command, as senior colonel, of a brigade which saw service at Munfordville, Kentucky and in the Tullahoma campaign. Wilder participated in a major skirmish at Hoover’s Gap where he pushed the enemy out of the Gap and pursued them on their retreat. Following Hoover’s Gap, the brigade was referred to as “Wilder’s Lightning Brigade.” A “terror to the enemy,” they were armed with Spencer repeating rifles and were mounted. Wilder’s brigade was the first to enter Chattanooga, and he earned the commendation of Major General George H. Thomas for his services at Chickamauga. He led the brigade during parts of the Atlanta campaign and, on August 7, 1864, was brevetted brigadier general. Wilder resigned from the army in October 1864 and settled in Chattanooga where he became involved in developing the natural resources of the area. He founded the Roane Iron Works in 1867 then built and operated two blast furnaces, the first in the south, at Rockwood, Tennessee. In 1870, he established a rail mill in Chattanooga. From 1890 to 1892, he was active in the promotion and construction of the Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago Railroad. He served as mayor and postmaster of Chattanooga, as pension agent at Knoxville, and as commissioner of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park. He died October 20, 1917, in Jacksonville, Florida and was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga.

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