[3] In 1850, his father (a merchant and market gardener) also became the local postmaster at the Erin Shades train stop near modern Glen Allen.

On April 23, 1861, just days after Governor Letcher called for troops, the "Blues" had voted to secede from the First Virginia, and asked to be attached "to some new Regiment to be placed under the command of a former United States officer who is a tactician and disciplinarian".

[11] They were instead sent by train to Fredericksburg with the First Virginia, and drilled extensively, as well as participated in several false alarms about Federal gunboats in the Potomac River near Aquia.

On June 7, Blues Captain Obediah Jennings Wise (editor of the Richmond Enquirer and son of Virginia Governor turned Confederate General Henry A.

John H. Richardson, who had started street car companies in Cincinnati and St. Louis before the war, as well as risen to the rank of colonel of the 179th Virginia militia and written an infantry manual adopted by the Confederate government.

The Blues would be recalled to the Confederate capitol by December, then the 46th was again placed under General Wise's command and sent in January 1862 to defend Roanoke Island, a crucial part of Norfolk's defenses.

However, while General Wise suffered from pleurisy and was confined to his tent ashore, Federal forces won the Battle of Roanoke Island.

His younger brother Isidore also served in the Confederate Army (in the 12th Virginia Infantry) and would rise to sergeant before being restricted to clerical duties based on a wound received at the Battle of Williamsburg in May 1862.

William Lovenstein had many health issues, even early in his service as the unit was sent to western Virginia, and spent most of 1863 and 1864 as a clerk in the Medical Purveyor's Office until receiving a disability discharge on November 24, 1864 due to a leg ulcer which failed to heal.

[17] Although Richmond City and Henrico County were split in the next election, Lowenstein continued to win re-election several times, this time as one of Richmond City's delegates, and served alongside James H. Dooley, John Thompson Brown, William S. Gilman and R.T. Daniel (by 1874, Joseph R. Anderson and Robert Ould replaced Brown and Daniel as his colleagues).

Lovenstein did not win any legislative seat in the 1878 session, but in 1879 again represented Richmond City, this time alongside John Hampden Chamberlayne, James Lyons Jr. and S. B.

[20] In his final term, fellow senators elected him their president pro tempore, to lead them when Virginia's lieutenant governor did not chair that chamber.

After becoming a state legislator, Lovenstein sponsored a bill requiring all Black teachers to attend summer "normal" schools (teacher-training).

[21] He also sponsored a bill to care for the Black insane, and in 1887 helped launch a new library association for Richmond (and served as a director and later treasurer).