Allegiance Union Years of service 1861-1864 | Rank Private Name Daniel Bean | |
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Died June 6, 1864 (aged 18)
Hampton, Virginia Buried at Plot: D 2820, Hampton National Cemetery Unit 11th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment | ||
Daniel Augustine Bean was born in Brownfield, Maine on May 20, 1846. He was a soldier in the American Civil War and the first to die from the community of Brownfield.
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Recritement
Bean's father was Major Sylvanus B. Bean who had already served in the Aroostook War in 1839. In October, 1861, at his home in Brownfield, Sylvanus enlisted twenty-one men from that and adjoining towns for the Eleventh Maine. At age 15, on November 2, his son Daniel enlisted in Company A, 11th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment along with his friend from Brownfield Elias P. Morton.
Service
Bean mustered November 11, 1861. Bean and his friend Elias P. Morton were both wounded in the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31, 1862. Bean was then detailed in the quartermaster department the following month. (His father Sylanus would join him as a quartermaster months later in November.) On June 1, 1864, Bean fought in Company A ten miles from Bermuda Hundred in a picket skirmish at the end of the Bermuda Hundred Campaign. Bean was wounded in the conflict along with 13 others, one soldier died. On his way to the hospital at Fort Monroe Bean was wounded again at the back of the second reserved picket. He was taken to Fort Monroe, Virginia where he had surgery to remove a bullet. Before his father Sylvanus could see Bean at the field hospital, Daniel died on June 6. Daniel was buried at Plot: D 2820, Hampton National Cemetery, City of Hampton, Virginia.
After Bean's death, his friend Elias, having been promoted to sergeant-major, May 10, 1864, left the Eleventh and was clerk for Bean's father Sylvanus, quartermaster of the 1st Division, 5th Army Corps, from February to June, 1865, and at Fort Halleck, now Wyoming, from July to December, 1865.
Legacy
On September 15, 1890 the Grand Army of the Republic (G. A. R.) post no. 160 (Brownfield), dept. of Maine, was named Daniel A. Bean and, as said by Sergeant Major Elias P. Morton of the Eleventh Maine, "the name of one of the best and bravest soldiers who went from Brownfield." Decades later Daniel's friend Elias P. Morton of Augusta and the Town of Brownfield paid for a monument to be made to Bean.
In 1911, John A. Wilson created a statue of Private Daniel A. Bean of Brownfield, Maine, 11th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The statue of Daniel Bean stands in Brownfield, Maine, where the roads to Hiram and Denmark diverge (Route 160 Brownfield Maine). Of all the Civil War memorials erected by Maine towns, this remarkable monument was the only one cast in the image of a real person. The absence of weapons distinguishes it even further. (Wilson would use this theme again with Silent Sam, by not including a cartridge box on the Confederate soldier's belt so he cannot fire his gun.) The boy stands as he would have on his last day at home, giving his oath of induction. The monument was unveiled by Bean's two sisters, while the band played "The Star-Spangled Banner".