Dalton, along with justice Campbell, Herbert Hope Risley, John-Baptist Hoffmann and P.O.Bidding initiated ethnographic studies in Chotanagpur.
His work Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal formed a part of the Census in British India in 1872.
The Northeast was inhabited by numerous tribes such as the Naga, Khamtis, Mishing, who did not hesitate to raid and pillage the towns of East India company and tea gardens.
He spent eighteen years in the first Assam light infantry, which was raised in 1817 in Cuttack, Odisha.
Edward sent Lieutenant Eden with a band of soldiers and in the fight, three sons of Kaieesha were killed.
During this time, the king of Ramgarh, Jagannath Shahi, helped him and provided his fifty Soldiers for protection.
The king of Seraikela, Kharsawan and several other zamindar and tribal chiefs provided assistants to him in the Rebellion of 1857.
The detachment reinforced Edward in Bagodar and occupied Hazaribagh, then Doronda in Ranchi, which was declared part of the Mughal Empire by rebel Soldiers.
[4] In January 1858, Edward marched to quell Chero and Bhogta, who had attacked landlords and destroyed jails, courthouses, government buildings and occupied Palamu Forts.
In Singhbhum, the kols had declared Arjun Singh as their king and revolted against colonial rule and burnt down the government buildings.
For war service, Edward received a gallantry award and was promoted to the rank of Major.
It was a catalogue entrusted by The Asiatic Society of Bengal for an exhibition of the primitive tribes of British India in Kolkata, which was the brainchild of Sir Joseph Fayrer.
But the exhibition ended due to logistical, political and health issues about ferrying the tribals of Assam to Kolkata.
The exhibition was scrapped but the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the British Indian Government were interested in scientific studies of tribals.
[4] In 1868, Edward supported pastor Fedrick Batsch, who constructed the Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church, Ranchi in 1855 and accumulated a congregation of 10,000 tribal followers.