Severely wounded during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864, he was recognized for his meritorious service less than eight months later with his nation's highest award for bravery, the U.S. Medal of Honor, for capturing the enemy's flag while serving as captain of Company D of the 157th Pennsylvania Infantry during the Battle of Five Forks, Virginia on April 1, 1865.

[3][4][5] Two months before his 29th birthday, J. Wallace Scott became one of Pennsylvania's early responders to President Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers to defend Washington, D.C. following the April 1861 fall of Fort Sumter to the Confederate States Army.

[6][7] Promoted to the rank of corporal early during his tenure of service, he and his men captured two enemy supply wagons while assigned to picket duties along an Annapolis Railroad line in Virginia in August 1861.

[8] Commissioned as a second lieutenant, he was assigned to the command staff of Company B, 157th Pennsylvania Infantry on garrison duty at Fort Delaware during the late fall and winter of 1862.

Shot in the right foot by a musket ball on August 23, he also sustained a shrapnel wound to his left leg when an artillery shell exploded near him.

[17] Appointed to the appraisal department of the U.S. Customs House in Philadelphia on February 22, 1870, J. Wallace Scott was subsequently promoted several times.

[19] Preceded in death by his wife and diagnosed with heart and kidney disease, Scott fell ill with pneumonia in 1903, and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 12.