William R. Cameron was born around 1841 in Lanarkshire County, Scotland, to Peter and Ann Cameron. His father worked as a coal miner. The family immigrated to America in the 1840s and settled in Bloss, Pennsylvania. They moved to Covington, Pennsylvania, in the 1850s, and by 1860, he was working as a farm laborer.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 25, 1862, and mustered in as a private in Company B of the 101st Pennsylvania Infantry on September 15. The army stationed the men along the North Carolina coast. Confederate forces captured him near Plymouth, North Carolina, on April 20, 1864, and imprisoned him in Andersonville and then Charleston. He died in Charleston on October 9, 1864.