Dr. Dignowity is a colorful figure in Texas Civil War history. He was born in Kuttenberg, Bohemia, in 1810 and immigrated to the United States in 1832. He became a medical doctor and traveled to San Antonio in 1846 with a group of Arkansas volunteers for the American- Mexican War. He stayed and became a successful doctor and businessman. In the mid-1850's he was imprisoned in regard to a land deal but was pardoned by his friend Governor Sam Houston. In 1859 he published an autobiography, Bohemia Under Austrian Despotism, to clear his reputation. An ardent abolitionist and opponent of secession, he fled San Antonio to Washington DC in 1861 when Confederate sympathizers threatened to hang him in Alamo Plaza. In correspondence to President Lincoln, he called on the president to recruit recent German immigrants to Texas for the Union cause and to establish a free state in the western part of Texas. A short biography may be found in the Handbook of Texas Online. He is buried with his wife, Amanda Jane (McCann) Dignowity, who continued the family business after his death in 1875. The hill-top site where their home, Harmony House, once stood is today the site of Dignowity City Park.

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Anthony Michael Dignowity was born in Kuttenberg, Bohemia, January 16, 1810, and came of a family possessing some means and enjoying some distinction for intellectual endowments. His educational advantages were good and he availed himself of every opportunity, taking a thorough collegiate course in the Jesuit College of his native place. He came to the United States at the age of twenty-two years, sailing, as his passport recites, from Hamburg, February 17, 1832.
For some time after his arrival in the country he resided at different places in the South, and acquired considerable property at Natchez (where he lived longer than elsewhere before coming to Texas). In 1835, while residing in Mississippi, he made a trip to Texas, extending as far as San Antonio, but soon returned, read medicine at Natchez, under Drs. Stone and Carrothers, and attended lectures in Cincinnati, Ohio. He adopted the electric system of medicine, then in its infancy and began its practice in Mississippi. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Dignowity gathered up the fragments of his hotel furniture and fixtures, which had been scattered by a great tornado, and, chartering the little steamer "Lady Morgan," moved to Talequah, Indian Territory, the then recently established seat of government of the Cherokee Nation. Here he practiced his profession for something over a year, and during this time frequently visited Little Rock, Arkansas, where he met Miss Amanda J. McCann, whom he married February 9, 1843. After his marriage. Dr. Dignowity moved to the little town of Illinois Falls, near the Indian country in Arkansas, and there continued his practice until the early spring of 1846, when he volunteered under Governor Yell of Arkansas for service under the United States flag in the war with Mexico. With ten others, Dr. Dignowity made his way across the country to San Antonio, it being their intention to join the Texas Rangers or some body of volunteers and proceed from that place to the armies of Gens. Scott or Taylor beyond the Rio Grande. Within a few hours, however, after Dr. Dignowity arrived at San Antonio, while at the table taking his first meal at the place, he was hastily summoned to attend a Mexican and an Indian who had been engaged in a street affray, and his presence as a physician becoming thus known and there being urgent need for his services he was prevailed upon to remain and devote his skill and energies, for a time, at least, to the afflicted of that place. He soon had a good practice and finally made up his mind to make San Antonio his home. He accordingly sent for and was joined by his family, which he had left at Little Rock, and from that time on until the opening of the war between the North and the South, devoted his time to the practice of medicine and to land speculation, both of which yielded him good financial returns. On the great issue which led to a rupture between the States, Dr. Dignowity was opposed to secession, and when his state voted to secede he in 1861 went to the North, making his way through Texas, the Indian Territory and Arkansas, on horseback, and finally reaching Washington City, where he secured employment under the government and remained during the entire period of the war.
Dr. Dignowity was a great sufferer by this struggle, losing the greater part of his property and the most of his health. On his return to Texas he did not resume his medical practice, but devoted himself to gathering up the fragments of his fortune. He followed this vigorously and with a fair degree of success until his death, April 22, 1875. He was the father of the following children: Anthony Francis, of this review; Albert Wentzel, who was killed February 25, 1872, at Piedras Negras, Mexico, while a soldier in the army of the patriot Juarez; Edward Lucien; Henry Louis; Charles Leonard; James Victor; Mary K., who died from the bite of a rattlesnake; and Imogene Teresa. Dr. Dignowity's career was an exceptional one, made so by an exceptional mental and moral organism. He was not only an accomplished physician, but a successful man of business. While a student and close investigator, the cast of his mind was practical. He endeavored during all his years to live along the lines of fairness and moral rectitude, seeking to do what was right because it was right and not from motives of policy or gain. He was greatly devoted to his family and was an ardent lover of his adopted country. He became a Republican on the organization of the party, and was ever afterward an ardent advocate of its principles. Dr. Dignowity was reared a Catholic and during his earlier years was an active communicant of the church, but his views on theological questions gradually underwent a change and he closed his life with strong leanings toward Spiritualism. [p. 2024, "A History of Texas and Texans", Volume 4, By Frank White Johnson; The American Historical Society, 1916