William Dunbar Holder (March 6, 1824 – April 26, 1900) was a prominent Confederate politician and soldier. He was a colonel in the Army of Northern Virginia, represented Mississippi in the Confederate States Congress, and also served as the 19th State Auditor of Mississippi from 1896 to 1900.
Biography Holder was born in Franklin County, Tennessee, but later moved to Mississippi at age 14. He served one term in the state legislature in 1853.
In 1861, following Mississippi's secession from the Union, he enlisted in the army and was elected captain of the Quitman Greys, Company C, 17th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, which became part of the Army of Northern Virginia. Holder was promoted to colonel of his regiment on April 26, 1862 and was wounded in the Battle of Malvern Hill in July.Albert Lucian Lewis. The Confederate Congress, a Study in Personnel, Volume 2, University of Southern California, 1955, p. 221
Holder was wounded again at the Battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863, where he commanded the 17th Mississippi as part of Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade.Kent Masterson Brown. Retreat from Gettysburg (2011), p. 54. In a letter to The Clarion-Ledger in October 1886, Holder wrote the following,
Disabled by his wounds, Holder resigned his army commission January 20, 1864. He then represented his home state in the Second Confederate Congress from 1864 to 1865. After the war Holder served as the State Auditor of Mississippi from 1896 to 1900.
He died in Jackson, Mississippi on April 26, 1900.Biographical Guide to the Mississippi Hall of Fame. Published during the 33rd Anniversary Year of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1935, p. 28.
Family He married Catharine Theresa Bowles (1837–1887) and they had six sons and one daughter.Tennessee: The Volunteer State, 1769-1923, Volume 2, by John Trotwood Moore and Austin Powers Foster, 1923, pp. 704-707.
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Political Graveyard