When Deal was fifteen, his family moved to Allen County, Indiana, where they farmed, and his father George later died.
Deal enlisted with Company C of the 88th Indiana Infantry Regiment in July 1862, after the American Civil War began.
He left active service within two years, and, after attending Fort Wayne College, became a teacher.
When it was decided that county records originally kept in Carrollton would be moved to Carroll, Deal became one of the first residents of the new town, in 1868.
He ran in the 1885 Iowa Senate election as a Republican candidate, and won the District 48 seat.