Biography of William Calvin Oates, Henry, Alabama

http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/henry/bios/wcoates.txt
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This file was contributed and copyrighted by: 

Barbara Walker Winge
<barbarawinge@yahoo.com>
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February 2002


WILLIAM C. OATES, OF ALABAMA

     William C. Oates, of Abbeville, who represents the Third Congressional 
     District of Alabama in the Congress of the United States, was born in 
     Pike County, Alabama, November 30, 1835.  His father, William Oates, 
     was a native of Darlington District, South Carolina, and died in 1871, 
     in the seventy-fourth year of his age.  He married Sarah Sellers of North 
     Carolina, who is still living and retains the full vigor of her active mind, 
     though nearly seventy-sic years old.  Her son inherited from her most of his 
     mental endowments.  Mr. Oates' brother, S. John A. Oates, a young man of high 
     character and excellent mind was killed at Gettysburg, in 1863.

     James Wyatt Oates, the youngest brother, resides in California and is one of the 
     most brilliant and forcible writers on the Pacific Slope.  The father of our subject, 
     a poor but respectable farmer, was not able to give him any educational advantages 
     beyond the few months' training received at a country school.  Leaving home at seventeen, 
     without a dollar in his pocket, he commenced as a common laborer and for three years 
     wandered much over Louisianna and Texas, friendless but self-reliant.

     Returning to Alabama in 1855, and making a good part of the journey on foot, he 
     taught school in the backwoods of Henry County, his present home, at the same time 
     reading and studying for self-improvement...  and in 1861 raised a company of 131 men 
     to serve in the Confederate army during the War, which formed a part of the subsequent 
     far-famed Fifteenth Alabama infantry regiment...  During a portion of the campaign of 
     1864 he commanded both the Fifteenth and Forty-eight Alabama regiments.  He was four 
     times slightly wounded, twice severely, and in the campaign of 1864 lost his right arm...
   
     [This is a very long biography, email me if you NEED the entire biography]

Ref:  Headley, P. C., PUBLIC MEN OF TO-DAY, 1882, S. S. Scranton & Company, Hartford, pp. 503-505.

There is another website with a biography and picture for William Calvin Oates at:

http://www.archives.state.al.us/govs_list/g_oatesw.html