William H. Wylie was born around 1840 in Arkansas to Green and Zelpha Wylie. His father was a farmer who owned $800 of real estate and $3,872 of personal property by 1860. Wylie grew up in Benton, Arkansas. The family moved to Anderson County, Texas, sometime in the 1860s. Wylie apparently opposed secession, blaming both the “Hell deserving Abolitionists and fire-eating Secessionists” for provoking the sectional crisis. Ultimately, however, he enlisted in the Confederate army in February 1862 and mustered in as a private in the 1^st Arkansas Infantry. He was wounded in the arm in April 1862 in the Battle of Shiloh, but he eventually recovered and rejoined his regiment. Confederate officials reported that he died on December 31, 1862, in the Battle of Murfreesboro. In reality, however, Wylie survived and deserted from the Confederate army. In April 1863, he informed a cousin that he had “made a declaration of independence and have seceded from the confederate Army.” He “sincerely hope[d] that there will be a Halt, that the rotten hearted scoundrels who first gave cause for this war get their just due.” He disappeared from the documentary record after April 1863.

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