William C. Oates
William Calvin Oates (either November 30 or December 1, 1835 – September 9, 1910) was a colonel in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, the 29th Governor of Alabama from 1894 to 1896, and a brigadier general in the U.S. Army during the Spanish–American War.
For other people of the same name, see William Oates (disambiguation).
William C. Oates
November 30, 1835
Pike County, Alabama, U.S.
September 9, 1910 (aged 74)
Montgomery, Alabama, U.S.
Confederate States Army (CSA)
United States Army (USA)
- 1861–65
- 1898
15th Alabama Infantry- 48th Alabama
Early life[edit]
Oates was born in Pike County, Alabama, to William and Sarah (Sellers) Oates, a poor farming family. All of his ancestors came to North America during the colonial era, and all of them came from the two countries of England and Wales.[1] At the age of 17, he believed that he had killed a man in a violent brawl and left home for Florida. Oates became a drifter, settling in Texas for a couple of years before returning to Alabama at the urging of his younger brother John, who the family had dispatched to locate him. He studied law at the Lawrenceville Academy in Lawrenceville and passed the bar examination, and then opened a practice in Abbeville.[2]
Postbellum career[edit]
Oates resumed his law practice in Henry County, Alabama, and served as a delegate to the 1868 Democratic National Convention. From 1870 to 1872, he was a member of the Alabama House of Representatives. In 1880, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving seven consecutive terms. Oates married Sarah Toney of Eufaula on March 28, 1882, and they had one son, William Calvin, Jr., who eventually joined his father in the law practice.
Oates was elected governor of Alabama in 1894 in a bitter campaign. Two years later, he unsuccessfully tried to secure his party's nomination as a candidate for the United States Senate. President William McKinley commissioned Oates as a brigadier general in 1898, and he served in the Spanish–American War. He returned to his law practice and speculated in real estate. He tried unsuccessfully to have a monument erected at Gettysburg to his comrades in the old 15th Alabama, including his fallen brother.
Oates died in Montgomery, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery.[6]