Benjamin W. Wilber was born around 1842 in Illinois to Robert Wilber and Elizabeth Wood. His father was a farmer who owned $12,000 of real estate and $2,000 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Henry County, Illinois. His father died in September 1860, leaving him $100 in his will. Wilber moved to Fox Lake, Wisconsin, in the early 1860s.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 12, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company E of the 29th Wisconsin Infantry later that day. He remained devoted to the Union, vowing not to return home until he received an “honerable discharge.” As he explained in March 1863, “I enlisted to see the war at an end and fight and if I fall I will fall doing my duty.” He took part in the siege of Vicksburg, and he died of chronic diarrhea in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 20, 1863.