Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he moved to Wisconsin at age 21 to pursue a career as a geologist and academic.

Daniels was quick to respond to the opening of hostilities between the states, organizing the 1st Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry Regiment in 1861.

The 1st Wisconsin was initially stationed in Missouri, but Daniels led successful raids into Arkansas.

[2] Daniels used the land to attempt a number of utopian and scientific farming schemes, including a school for freedmen.

During the 1880s he and his wife were involved in Albert Kimsey Owen's utopian socialist "Topolobampo" colony in Sinaloa, Mexico, though it is unclear whether they actually attempted to settle there.