Joseph Dorsey Bowers was born 7 February 1840 in Shepherdstown, Jefferson County, (West) Virginia, the son of John and Harriet (Baker) Bowers. As of 1850, the Bowers family was listed as living in District #9, Berkeley County, (West) Virginia. Listed in that census were the father, John (born ca. 1813), mother, Harriet (born ca. 1813, daughter of John and Catharine Baker), son (Joseph) Dorsey, daughter Catharine (also known as Katharine M.), Catharine & Jane McKinney (nieces to Harriet Baker; she apparently agreed to take on the two daughters after the death of her sister, Catharine Baker McKinney, sometime before 1850).

As of 1860, the Bowers family had moved to Monongalia County (White Day), Virginia. At the time of the 1860 census, the only children listed with the family were Joseph D. & Katharine M. Joseph Dorsey Bowers married Matilda Ann Ross (born in 14 January 1844 in Marion County, a daughter of John Burris & Lorena Bunner Ross) in Marion Co. on 14 February 1861.

Bowers enlisted in Co. F, of the Twelfth West Virginia Infantry and was mustered-in for a term of three years at Wheeling on August 27, 1862. He was listed as absent in December, 1862 as he was in the hospital in Cumberland, Maryland with “sickness.” From July, 1863 to the end of the war, Bowers was assigned as an orderly to brigade headquarters on the orders of Col. William Baker Curtis (there is a chance that Curtis and Bowers were distant cousins or simply that both had lasting family ties back in Sharpsburg, Md. that influenced the assignment). Bowers was mustered-out on June 13, 1865 in Richmond, Virginia.

Sometime after the Civil War, the Bowers family moved to Nebraska. Joseph is shown as having applied for a government pension based on his military service in March 1892 while living in Nebraska (application #1101562, certificate #843542). Though he was living in Colfax Co., Nebraska in the 1880s and 1890s, for some reason, he died in Chicago, Illinois on 13 October 1897. He was buried in the Schuyler Cemetery, Leigh, Colfax County, Nebraska. Matilda applied for a widow's pension in March 1898 (application #673488, certificate #483947). Matilda died 1 October 1922 in Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska and was buried next to her husband. In all, the couple had twelve children - six sons and six daughters, all born between 1863 and 1889.

Joseph D. Bowers was a member of the Phil Sheridan Post #34, Schuyler, Nebraska.