Dr. William Chester Minor was an American army surgeon and one of the largest contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary but also widely known for committing murder that happened because of his mental problems.
Dr. Minor was born on June 22, 1834 in Sri Lanka and a country in South Asia to parents Eastman Strong Minor and Lucy Minor who were there as missionaries, representing a Scottish Presbyterian group called Covenanters. The mission school gave Minor and his siblings an excellent education, and he had the opportunity to learn several languages. When William was only three his mother died and by the age of five he saw his father remarried another widowed missionary and never really had a prominent mother figure in his life. Minor was sent back to the United States and completed a classical education and graduated from the School of Medicine at Yale. He spent nine years in a medical apprenticeship before he volunteered for service in the Union Army just four days before the Battle of Gettysburg. After months of service, Dr. Minor was plunged into the horror of war. He worked as a surgeon and served at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 1864, which was notable for the terrible casualties suffered by both sides. Minor was also given the task of punishing an Irish soldier in the Union Army by branding him on the face with a D for “deserter”, and his nationality later played a role in Minor’s dementia