by Jefferson Davis Lilly II, JVCinC
Commander William Carroll Duval belonged to a prominent American lineage with roots in Virginia and the early Republic. He was a grandson of Union Civil War Brigadier General Isaac Harding Duval (1824-1902), a notable officer who commanded troops in the Union Army during the Civil War and later served as a U.S. Congressman from West Virginia. During the Civil War, Duval was commissioned as the first Major of the 1st Virginia Volunteer Infantry on June 1, 1861. He was later promoted to Colonel of the 9th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry. In September 1864, he was badly wounded in his thigh at the Battle of Opequon. After he recovered, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General and given charge of a brigade of infantry in the VIII Corps.
By the end of the war, General Duval had fought in 36 separate engagements and commanded two different divisions in the VIII Corps. He had eleven horses killed or wounded under him. On May 17, 1865, after the surrender of the main Confederate armies under Generals Lee and Johnston, but with some other Confederate units still in the field in the west, an unknown attacker tried to kill Duval at Staunton, Virginia. Duval was mustered out of the volunteer service on January 15, 1866. On February 24, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Duval for appointment to the brevet grade of Major General of Volunteers, effective March 13, 1865, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination on May 4, 1866.
Our subject, William Carroll Duval, was born on April 1, 1898, in Fostoria, Ohio, son of Adam Isaac Duval and his wife, the former Florence Lydia Kob. He attended local schools and graduated from the University of Cincinnati. William then married Eugenia Loos on June 15, 1922 in Cincinnati. He enlisted and was commissioned an officer in the United States Naval Reserve, serving in both World War I and World War II and retired at the rank of Commander.
William was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States on October 13, 1953, and he served two, two-year terms of office. He completed his duty to the Order in 1957 and was succeeded by Major General Ulysses Simpson Grant III.
Commander William Carroll Duval died on March 27, 1983, in Aurora, Ohio at the age of 84, with his beloved Eugenia predeceasing him barely 4 months prior. William and Eugenia were the parents of William Carroll, III and Mareen D. (Duval) Wolfe. His funeral was held in the chapel of Knox Presbyterian Church in Hyde Park. He was cremated and ashes were inurned in the Memorial Mausoleum at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.