[4][5] As a drummer,[6] the younger Woodard was "accorded a place in the martial band of the regiment and with it march from Nashville to Chatatnooga [sic], and from there to Atlanta.

After turning down the job offer as an assistant principal at McMicken in June 1871, Woodward moved to Europe where he studied for a year at Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp.

"[15] In Paris, in addition to painting, Woodward also worked a designer for French illustrated journals, and according to Low it was on commission from one of these to record the Yorktown Centennial Celebration[15] in October 1881 that he returned and unfortunately died back in Indiana in 1882, at the young age of 31.

Smith in his The History of the state of Indiana of 1903 writes that "Wilbur Woodward, of Greenberg, gave promise of becoming one of the greatest painters in the world.

[citation needed] Two modello drawings by him, a ricordo of the previously mentioned Ossian, and Summer Evening, are in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.