Following the end of the Civil War, Wilson embarked on research into Black history. He published
Emancipation: Its Course and Progress in 1882, charting Black history from 1481 BC, which he identified as the year of an exodus, to 1875 AD. The historian
Earl E. Thorpe, in an analysis of Wilson's work, described the book as "a very crude effort" and noted the difficulty of covering 3000 years of history in 242 pages. Also in 1882 Wilson was delegated with the task of writing a history of the regiment he served with by the
Grand Army of the Republic. The work that emerged from this was
The Black Phalanx, published in 1888 and covering the history of Black soldiers in the
American Revolutionary War,
War of 1812, and
American Civil War. Nineteen chapters and 528 pages long, the book also has biographical sketches of prominent figures. Just two of those chapters cover the American Revolution and War of 1812; the remaining seventeen focused on the Civil War. This book had three total editions published. The
American Publishing Company sought to make the book a success, with a door-to-door campaign, subscription sales, agent selling, and widely advertising. Their efforts were successful; the educator
Irvine Garland Penn wrote three years later that sales "surpass[ed] that of any other work written by an Afro-American." Thorpe thought Wilson's coverage of the first two wars had "nothing new", but the later ones used credible sources but suffered from excessive quotation (around half of the book) and numerous grammatical mistakes. It also lacked an index. The public positively received it, and the work was lauded as his
magnum opus upon his death. Nine years later the book was exhibited at the
Exposition Universelle in Paris. Historians
Arthur Schomburg and
John Edward Bruce deemed it a foundational text in its field in 1911.
Carter G. Woodson wrote in 1944 that it had "shaped" his "historical consciousness" according to Varon. == Later life and death ==