”Our Congressmen: A Day in the House” (detail), Harper’s Weekly, 1890, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives

OATES, William Calvin, a Representative from Alabama; born at Oates Cross Roads, near Troy, Pike County, Ala., November 30, 1835; pursued elementary studies at home and attended an academy at Lawrenceville, Ala.; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1858 and practiced in Abbeville, Ala., from 1859 to 1861; during the Civil War entered the Confederate Army as captain of Company G, Fifteenth Regiment, Alabama Infantry, in July 1861; appointed colonel in the Provisional Army of the Confederacy May 1, 1863; resumed the practice of law in Abbeville in 1865; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1868; member of the State house of representatives 1870-1872; unsuccessful candidate for the nomination for Governor in 1872; member of the State constitutional convention in 1875; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-seventh and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1881, until November 5, 1894, when he resigned, having been elected Governor; chairman, Committee on Revision of the Laws (Forty-eighth through Fiftieth Congresses), Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department (Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate in 1897; Governor of Alabama 1894-1896; brigadier general of Volunteers in the Spanish-American War and stationed at Camp Meade, Pa.; resumed the practice of law; died in Montgomery, Ala., September 9, 1910; interment in Oakwood Cemetery.