ONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: WILLIAM DUNOVANT. - Harris County, TX 

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Submitted by Doris Peirce - ginlu@home.com 
15 October 2001 
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson 

WILLIAM DUNOVANT.

William Dunovant was born in Chester county, South Carolina, 
March 20, 1845.  He is a son of A. Q. Dunovant, a signer of the 
Ordinance of Secession in South Carolina and an officer with the 
rank of colonel on the staff of the governor.  His grandfather, Dr. 
John Dunovant, of Chester, S. C., was for many years a prominent 
physician, also a State Senator.  On his mother's side of the family 
the ancestry reaches back to the Colonial days of South Carolina and 
to Gaston de Foix of France.  Two uncles of Capt. Dunovant were 
distinguished among the gallant South Carolinians who fought for the 
Confederacy, Gen. R. M. Dunovant and Gen. John Dunovant.  Captain 
Dunovant entered the Confederate service at the age of fifteen years 
and six months as a private in company F, 17th regiment of the South 
Carolina volunteers; was subsequently appointed for skill and valor 
to the captaincy of company C, of the same regiment, which was made 
a part of Evan's brigade, McLaws division of the army of Northern 
Virginia.  He was severely wounded in the right arm at the second 
battle of Manasas, and lost his left arm in the battle of the Crater 
on the Petersburg line in the summer of 1864.  After the disbandment 
of the army, Capt. Dunovant, with his parents and sisters came to 
Texas, locating in Colorado county, near the plantation owned by his 
father prior to the war.  He and his sisters made Eagle Pass their 
home until about eight years ago, when he and his sister, Miss Adelia 
A. Dunovant, took a residence in Houston.  His other sister, Mrs. W. E. 
Calhoun, lives in Gainesville, Texas.  In all these years Capt. 
Dunovant has continued to make Colorado county the center of his 
business operations.  In conversation the whole field of literature 
is his domain, for, although he entered the Confederate service at 
the early age of 15, he had just completed a thorough collegiate 
course, including Greek and Latin, at Mount Zion College, Winnsboro, 
S.C., and this has been supplemented in later years by extensive 
reding.  He excels in oratory, and two of his speeches, "Lee and the 
South," and "The Relation of the Silver Question to Agriculture," have 
attracted wide attention because of his original and logical treatment 
of great underlying principles.  

Correspondent Houston Daily Post.