Son of John Drew; married to Laura Ann Drew.

Union Civil War veteran. Born a slave, he was freed by Union troops in Missouri and enlisted in Company F, 56th U.S. Colored Troops. He was one of 180,000 African American soldiers who fought for the Union.

From the Portland Oregonian, Nov. 17, 1902, page 12:

Rev. Daniel Drew, an ex-slave, will lecture Wednesday Evening

An entertainment and lecture will be given next Wednesday evening in the Sunnyside Congregational Church, under the auspices of Ben Butler Post No. 57, G.A.R. for the benefit of the Lone Fir Monument Association. Rev. Daniel Drew will deliver a lecture on "Condition of the Colored Race Before, During, and Since the Civil War."

Mr. Drew was a slave at the outbreak of the Civil War War, and was released by the Union soldiers. He enlisted in the Union Army, and served till the close of the war. Mr. Drew will give his personal experiences as a slave. Besides the address by Mr. Drew, there will be patriotic music and Southern melodies by the Congregational Church choir. W. Wickline, H.F. Yates, and F.A. Coleman of the Ben Butler Post, have charge of the affair.

-------------------

(from Oregon Black Pioneers, Oregon's only historical society dedicated to preserving and presenting the experiences of African Americans statewide)

Daniel Drew was a Civil War soldier who became a minister and Chaplain of the Oregon chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Drew was born into slavery in Virginia. When he was about 18 years old, his en-slavers moved to Missouri, taking their slaves with them. Daniel attempted to run away but was caught and beaten as punishment. Freedom came in 1863, when the Union Army took control of the town and liberated all the enslaved people there. Motivated to help defeat the Confederacy and earn wages of his own for the first time, Drew moved to St. Louis to enlist.

Drew volunteered for the 3rd Arkansas Infantry's African division. The unit was dispatched to Helena, Arkansas where they served in guard duty for the town. Six months later, this unit was reorganized as the Army's 56th Colored Infantry. Drew acted as the unit's drummer, but in summer 1865 he saw combat for the first time. 360 of its members, including Drew, were sent to capture Confederate troops destroying local farms in Union-held Arkansas. 1000 Arkansas and Missouri Confederates met the Union forces, and an hours-long battle ended in a stalemate.

At war's end, Private Drew stayed on as part of troops assigned to garrison duty at Helena, and a cholera outbreak decimated the unit. Drew survived, and was discharged in St. Louis. He quickly returned to Arkansas to enroll in a new Quaker vocational school, and after graduating decided to enter the clergy. In 1871 he became a minister in the Religious Society of Friends, the first Black person known to serve as a Quaker minister.

In 1901, Daniel and his wife Laura moved to Oregon. They purchased a home in Southeast Portland within walking distance of the meetinghouse of the Portland Monthly Meeting. Drew became a prominent speaker at Quaker gatherings in Marion and Yamhill counties during the 1910s. He later led Portland's Sunnyside Meeting before becoming the minister at Portland's Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal church.

After the Civil War, American's Union veterans created a new organization called the Grand Army of the Republic. Unlike the military, the GAR was not segregated, and Drew became involved in the Oregon chapter. In 1902 Drew took a leadership role in a quest to raise funds for a memorial to war veterans at Portland's Lone Fir Cemetery. He gave speeches across Portland titled "The Condition of the Colored Race, Before, During and Since the Civil War." The fundraising effort was a success.

Drew remained an active member of the Oregon GAR the rest of his life, and was named the chaplain of the Oregon chapter in 1919. He closed each of his reports with a quote which summaries his life well: "Let us be our best at all times, supporting and encouraging in every possible way those things that are just and right." Daniel Drew died in 1923. He is one of at least 15 Black Civil War veterans buried in Oregon.