John Aquilla Wilson

Photo from York Town Square Blog who says:

Two aging Civil War soldiers flank a Lincoln impersonator. The black veteran is thought to be John Aquilla Wilson, known as ‘Quil,’ of Fawn Township in southeastern York County. He enlisted in the United States Colored Troops, 32nd Regiment, in 1864. Wilson died at the age of 101.

John “Quil” Wilson was not only the last surviving Black ACW veteran, he was of the youngest men to fight the confederates in the Gettysburg Campaign,
Scott Mingus From Cannonball says:

when he served as an unpaid volunteer manning the trenches defending Wrightsville against the Confederate brigade of Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon. There are no specific records of Wilson’s individual service at Wrightsville, but his small company was noted by the Lancaster Examiner and Herald as having “fought bravely.”

He volunteered to join a company of unpaid militia in Columbia, along with other parishioners of the Fawn African Methodist Church, and the majority of men also worked at a large rolling mill who’s owner, William Case was recruiting volunteers from the black community.
colonel Jacob Frick said:

“After working industriously in the rifle-pits all day, when the fight commenced they took their guns and stood up to their work bravely. They fell back only when ordered to do so.” The Lancaster newspaper trumpeted “the only Columbia volunteers in the fight were fifty-three [black men], who after making entrenchments with the soldiers, took muskets and fought bravely.”

Wilson later joint the 32nd U.s colored troops and died in 1942 being the last living Civil war veteran in York county.

Individuals like Wilson are behind the numbers of the Civil War, knowing what happened to him after the end of the civil war is particularly interesting.

The duration and out come of a war has an impact on all involved and to understand this impact to the full it is easier to start with the macro - one soldier and his life - before - during - after…