Brigadier-General Ellison Capers, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 5, South Carolina
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[918] He was assigned to the old sloop-of-war Rappahannock, and remained in the harbor of Calais several months, the French authorities refusing to permit her to leave. He was then transferred to the ram Stonewall, built in France, offered to the Danish government and rejected, and later sold on her return to France to the Confederate States, the transfer being made in the Bay of Biscay to Capt. T. J. Page, of Virginia and Wilkinson joined her as master, off Bell island. The Stonewall soon sprang a leak, on account of a storm which she encountered thirty-six hours out, and was compelled to put into the port of Ferrol, Spain, for repairs. Upon completion of her repairs she steamed out and offered battle to the United States frigate Niagara and sloop-of-war Sacramento, under Commodore Craven, but the latter declined to fight, and the ram proceeded down the coast to Lisbon to coal, and then started by the southern route for America, her progress toward Wilmington having been obstructed by another severe storm. On reaching Nassau they were informed of the termination of the war, and putting into Havana, the vessel was sold and the crew dismissed. Master Wilkinson went to Mexico then, and for some time served under Colonel Talcott, of Virginia, as civil engineer upon a railroad. Thence he returned to Charleston, which has been his home ever since. In 1896 he was appointed chief inspector of customs and boarding officer of the port.

James T. Williams, a veteran of Gist's brigade, for three terms mayor of Greenville, was born at that city June 28, 1845. He is the son of Dr. James T. Williams and his wife Anna D'Oyley. His grandfather was Dr. Thomas B. Williams, of Virginian and Welsh descent. At the age of sixteen years, in June, 1861, Mr. Williams enlisted as a private in Company A, Sixteenth South Carolina volunteers, and from then until the close of the great war was a faithful and gallant soldier of that command. Going to Mississippi with his brigade in the spring of 1863, he served under Johnston in the defense of Jackson, with Bragg in the great victory at Chickamauga, under Johnston again in the famous campaign from Dalton to Atlanta, and under the command of Hood in the last fighting about Atlanta, and the battles of Franklin and Nashville, Tenn. About a month before