Wilder soon arrived in Columbus, Ohio, nearly penniless, and found employment as drafter and then as an apprentice millwright at a local foundry.

In 1857, eight years after he arrived in Columbus, Wilder moved to Indiana, first to Lawrenceburg and then to Greensburg, where he married Martha Jane Stewart and raised a large family.

[1] At the outbreak of the Civil War, Wilder organized a light artillery company in the Greensburg area, even going so far as to cast two six-pounder cannons at his foundry.

Wilder's company was mustered into state service, but the Federal government declined to accept it, as Indiana had already met its quota of artillery units.

[3] Meanwhile, Captain Wilder was quickly promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 17th Indiana on June 4, 1861, serving where he remained during the early campaigns in Virginia and garrison duty in Kentucky.

Bragg approached Munfordville, a station on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad where Wilder commanded the Union garrison, which consisted of three regiments with extensive fortifications.

[6] Realizing that Union reinforcements were nearby and not wanting to kill or injure innocent civilians, the Confederates communicated still another demand for surrender.

Wilder personally entered enemy lines blindfolded under a flag of truce, and Maj. Gen. Simon B. Buckner escorted him to view all the Confederate troops and to convince him of the futility of resisting.

[8] His initial combat mission was to pursue another of Morgan's raids into Kentucky intended to sever the Army of the Cumberland's primary supply line.

Despite the use of rail and wagons to speed up the pursuit, the mission was a failure, with Morgan's command escaping at the Rolling Fork River.

Due to this speed of deployment, the unit earned the nickname, "The Lightning Brigade", and it would prove the validity of its conversion in the campaign in the Western theater.

He felt the repeating and breech loading carbines in use by the Federal cavalry lacked the accuracy at long range that his brigade would need.

[15] While Rosecrans looked at the regiment's five-shot Colt revolving rifle that would equip other units in the Army of the Cumberland (particularly seeing action with the 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry Union forces at Snodgrass Hill during the Battle of Chickamauga), Wilder was initially opting for the Henry repeating rifle as the proper weapon to arm his brigade.

[21] By the middle of the latter month, the brigade's soldiers had realized the advantages the breech-loading repeating rifle held over the muzzleloader, and they exuded confidence in themselves, their leaders, their new tactics, and their treasured new weapons.

Bypassing Army red tape, Wilder had asked his men to vote on purchasing the rifles, and they agreed unanimously.

[31] On the second day at Chickamauga, September 20, Wilder's brigade, with its superior firepower, was one of the few units that were not immediately routed by the Confederate onslaught against the Union right flank.

However, just then, Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana found Wilder and excitedly proclaimed that the battle was lost and demanded to be escorted to Chattanooga.

In the time that Wilder took to calm down the secretary and arrange a small detachment to escort him back to safety, the opportunity for a successful attack was lost, and he ordered his men to withdraw to the west.

In 1867, Wilder founded an ironworks in the Chattanooga region, then built and operated the first two blast furnaces in the South at Rockwood, Tennessee.

From 1884 to 1892, Wilder helped promote and construct the Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago Railroad while living in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Wilder moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1897 after receiving an appointment from President William McKinley as a Federal pension agent, then was commissioner of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.