Wiley Benjamin Ector: Confederate Officer and Texas Farmer (1827–1876)
By: Brett J. Derbes
Published: April 6, 2011
Wiley Benjamin Ector, Confederate officer, was born on April 14, 1827, in Meriwether, Georgia, to Hugh Walton Ector, Jr., and Dorothy (Duncan) Ector. He owned three slaves and lived on 319 acres in Meriwether with his family until the late 1840s. He attended West Point as a cadet from 1845 to 1846 and enlisted as a private in Company A of the Second Battalion Reserve Infantry in Georgia. Ector was a captain in the Thirteenth Regular Infantry during the Mexican War. He moved to Texas at the urging of his older brother Matthew, and in 1849 the two were living in Henderson, Rusk County, Texas. On July 3, 1856, he married Ellen A. Wolfe in Cherokee County, Texas, and couple produced two children. By 1860 Ector was a successful farmer in Van Zandt Country and owned twenty-two slaves.
During the Civil War Ector enlisted as a major with Company E of the Tenth Texas Cavalry on October 31, 1861, in Taos, Texas. He enlisted for one year of service, but there is no record of his service after February 1862. After the war he returned to farming in Van Zandt County and died in 1876.
Bibliography:
Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Texas, National Archives and Records Service, Washington. Field Officers Serving in Texas Confederate Regiments (http://history-sites.com/~kjones/txoffs.html), accessed February 3, 2011.
Time Periods:
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Brett J. Derbes, “Ector, Wiley B.,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/ector-wiley-b.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
fec06
- April 6, 2011
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