William Sidney Graves was born on March 27, 1865, in Mount Calm, Texas. Graves was a career army officer who served as an assistant to the acting chief of staff of the army in early 1918 before being handed command of the 8th Infantry Division that July. He did not, however, serve in the European theater during the war (World War I) but was instead deployed to Siberia to prevent Japanese annexation of Russian territories during the Russian Revolution. Graves died in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, on February 27, 1940.