Edward A . Wild Edward Augustus Wild ( November 25 , 1825 – August 28 , 1891 ) was an American homeopathic doctor and a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War . Early life and career . Wild was a native of Brookline , Massachusetts , the second son of homeopath Dr . Charles Wild and his wife Mary . He earned his medical degree in 1846 from Harvard and at Jefferson Medical College , and he also studied homeopathy , becoming a member of the Massachusetts Society of Homeopathy . Wild then traveled and studied medicine in Paris , France . Wild practiced alongside his father as a homeopathic physician in Brookline until 1855 , when he and his new wife traveled to Turkey . He joined the Ottoman Army as a medical officer and served in the Crimean War . He then returned to Massachusetts and resumed his medical practice . Civil War service . With the outbreak of the Civil War , Wild enlisted in the Union Army as a front - line officer , preferring to command troops rather than to treat their injuries . He served as a captain in Company A of the 1st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry . from May 1861 until July 1862 . He fought in First Battle of Bull Run and again in the Peninsula Campaign , where he was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines . On August 21 , he was appointed Colonel of the 35th Massachusetts Infantry and assigned to the Army of the Potomac ' s IX Corps . Wild led his new regiment into combat during the Maryland Campaign . At the Battle of South Mountain , Wild suffered another severe wound , one that necessitated the amputation of his left arm . He returned home to recuperate . By April 1863 , Wild had recovered enough to resume his military duties , and was promoted to brigadier general on April 24 and assigned to recruiting duties . A fervent abolitionist , he aggressively recruited black soldiers for the United States Colored Troops , as well as helping recruit white officers to lead them , including helping Robert Gould Shaw fill his officer complement for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry . Wild was friends with fellow abolitionist and author Harriet Beecher Stowe and enlisted her half - brother , James C . Beecher , as a white officer in one of the new black regiments . When Wild was able to resume his field duties , he freed hundreds of slaves in North Carolina , resettled them safely on Roanoke Island in North Carolina , and then recruited many of them to join the military . Wild took command of a brigade of black infantry that soon became known as " Wild ' s African Brigade . " The brigade , headquartered in Norfolk , comprised the 55th Massachusetts Infantry , and the 2nd and 3rd North Carolina Colored Volunteers ( which later became renumbered as the 36th and 37th U . S . Colored Troops respectively ) . Wild ' s men served in the Charleston , South Carolina , area and saw action in numerous skirmishes and battles in that region , including an expedition to South Mills and Camden Court House in December . Transferred to the Army of the Potomac in 1864 , Wild and his black soldiers participated in the Overland Campaign and the subsequent Siege of Petersburg , Wild ' s men constructed and manned Fort Pocahontas , an earthen - walled Virginia fort on the James River that during the Battle of Wilson ' s Wharf withstood an attack on May 24 by Fitzhugh Lee ' s Confederates . In early 1865 , Wild ' s men performed picket duty along the Appomattox River . They were a part of the large force of black troops under Godfrey Weitzel that occupied the former Confederate national capital , Richmond , Virginia , holding that city through the end of the war . Wild ' s men were among those troops who witnessed the historic visit of President Abraham Lincoln to Richmond following the city ' s fall to the Union forces . In July , Wild ordered and supervised the torture of several members of the Chennault family in Danburg , Ga . Suspecting them of being involved in the missing Confederate gold , he had their hands tied behind their backs and their thumbs strung up . In the case of one of the prisoners , this caused the flesh to be stripped from the bones . Members of his unit forced the Chennault ladies to disrobe in search of " stolen " jewelry . Wild was honorably discharged in January 1866 , receiving no punishment for his war crimes . Postbellum years . After the war , Wild could no longer practice medicine due to his war injuries . He engaged in silver mining in Nevada as a superintendent of operations . He operated in the Diana Mine , now part of the Berlin - Ichthyosaur State Park near Austin . He traveled extensively in South America . He died in Medellín , Colombia , and was buried in the city ' s Cementerio de San Pedro .