Zebulon Dyer was born in 1837 in Upper Tract, Pendleton County, West Virginia.  He was a member of the Union Philosophical Society and Phi Kappa Sigma; he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1859.  Until the outbreak of the Civil War, he spent the next two years teaching and studying law. 

Dyer entered the Confederate States Army as a lieutenant in 1861; he was killed later that same year at Allegheny Mountain on December 13. He was twenty-four years old.