William S. Duncan was born around 1840 in Ohio to John Duncan and Mary Shield. His father was a farmer who owned $900 of real estate by 1850. The family moved to Montgomery County, Indiana, around 1842, and then to Clark County, Missouri, five years later. Severe flooding, however, prompted them to return to Indiana around 1853.

 

Duncan enlisted in the Union army on April 24, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company G of the 10^th Indiana Infantry later that day. The regiment spent the next few months in West Virginia, and the men took part in the Battle of Rich Mountain on July 11, 1861. They mustered out on August 6, 1861, when their 3-month term of enlistment expired.

 

Duncan, however, returned to the Union army soon afterward, mustering in as a corporal in Company B of the 10^th Indiana Infantry on September 18, 1861. The regiment took part in the Siege of Corinth, the Battle of Perryville, the Battle of Chickamauga, the siege of Chattanooga, the Battle of Missionary Ridge, and the Atlanta campaign. In March 1862, he declared that he was “not homesick for I said at the battle of Mill springs that I was going to see it through or die in the atemp [sic].” He was mortally wounded on June 15, 1864, in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, and he died on June 25, 1864.

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