sentences:  He spent three years in California engaged in gold mining, from 1852 to 1855, when he returned to his home in Port Byron and engaged in the coal mining and mercantile business.He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1859.Wilshire entered the Union Army as major in the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served from July 16, 1862, to July 16, 1864, when he resigned his commission because of health reasons.