author
Nelson H. DeLane
1838–1926
A Civil War veteran and local historian, he helped preserve the record of Company I of the 24th Massachusetts Volunteers for later generations. His surviving work is valued less as a personal memoir than as a careful roll call of service, memory, and community.
1 Audiobook
Roster of Company I, 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers
by Charles Bean Amory, James Armstrong, Nelson H. DeLane
About the author
Born in 1838 and dying in 1926, Nelson H. DeLane is chiefly remembered today as one of the compilers of Roster of Company I, 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, published in 1902 with James Armstrong and Charles B. Amory. The book gathers names and service details for the men of the company and remains his best-known published work.
Available records connect him closely with Massachusetts and with Civil War service in Company I, 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers. That background helps explain the practical, commemorative character of his writing: rather than telling a broad war story, the book focuses on preserving the identities and service histories of individual soldiers.
Little else about his life could be confirmed from the sources reviewed here, so the safest portrait is a modest one. DeLane appears as a veteran-author whose lasting contribution was to help save a piece of regimental history that might otherwise have faded from view.