William Othello Wilson

[2] He earned the Medal of Honor on December 30, 1891, for bravery in volunteering to successfully carry a message to the Pine Ridge Indian Agency in South Dakota.

Just a few weeks before the 9th Cavalry left the Pine Ridge reservation, Wilson took an unauthorized trip to Chadron, Nebraska and was accused of desertion.

He spent a week in the guardhouse of Fort Robinson before his comrades from the 9th Cavalry left their winter lodgings through a blizzard to reach a barracks.

Private (then Corporal) William O. Wilson, Troop I, 9th Cavalry: For gallantry in carrying a message for assistance through country occupied by the enemy, when the wagon train under escort of Captain Loud was attacked by hostile Sioux Indians, near the Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota.

[6] In February 2003, Wilson's only surviving daughter, Anna V. Jones, donated her father's medal to the then new Maryland African American Museum Corporation.