"James Willson, Died of a wound received on the field of battle Apr.10,1865."

James Willson was my second great grand uncle. He was a color bearer with the Second Rockbridge Dragoons. According to Robert Driver's Lexington and Rockbridge County in the Civil War, the Dragoons led a charge at Appomattox on the morning of April 9, 1865, that broke the Union line. This was the same day that Lee surrendered.  James Willson was wounded in the conflict and died the next day.  He was the next to last battlefield casualty in Lee's army--another man who was wounded at the same time as Willson died on April 14th.

This is another one of those family stories that I grew up hearing from my great aunts.  Willson is buried at New Providence Presbyterian Church in Brownsburg, Virginia.

When my son was in elementary school (about 5th grade), each student had to prepare a scrapbook on  the Civil War. He wrote about this as part of his project and the teacher counted off points because "there was no battle at Appomattox".  Needless to say, that irritated me greatly.  So I photocopied the pages from Driver's book & sent them in with my son.  The teacher wrote me a note that he had conferred with another teacher (who had written several books about Mosby) and found that I was correct.  He gave my son the points back.  What a $%&#!