Daniel Oakey

Daniel Oakey is known today for History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford, a work that is listed by Project Gutenberg and library catalogs. The book grew from a paper he read at an officers' reunion in Boston on May 12, 1884, giving it the feel of a firsthand remembrance shaped for fellow veterans as well as later readers.

Although biographical details about his life are hard to confirm from the sources I found, his writing clearly places him close to the events he described and to the veterans' community that kept those memories alive. That makes his work especially useful for readers interested in Civil War history told from inside a regiment rather than from a distant overview.

For modern listeners and readers, Oakey stands out less as a literary celebrity than as a careful witness. His contribution is the kind many history lovers value most: a focused, experience-based record that helps a single regiment's story remain vivid long after the war itself ended.