Confederate pension applications are available to view free of charge on the North Carolina Digital Collections website.
I have found it helpful to initiate a search for a pension application by entering “Wilson County” in the first search box. Make sure you put the term in quotation marks.
From there, type the surname you are researching into the second search box and make sure “within results” is selected.
Click on the results to view the pension application.
Wilson County Genealogical Society 