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When the National Democratic Convention was held in Charleston, S. C., in 1860, Daniel Quinn was one of the pages, and in watching the proceedings of the convention, with its mighty deliberations and orations of patriotic fervor, he became fired with an ambition to become a statesman or a soldier. He was a little Irish boy who had come to Charleston with his parents in 1849, when he was just four years old. His boyhood days had been largely spent in hunting small game ooutside the city limits, in which he gained much skill with the rifle. As the war came in in 1861 he debated with himself whether it was better to go to school or to war. Impulsively choosing the latter, he left home, went to Richmond, Va., and enlisted in Company I, 1st Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, Col. Maxey Gregg, being then then sixteen years old. He became one of the expert shots of the army. In the battle of Gaines's Mills, while our line of battle lay on a hill awaiting orders, the enemy's line on another hill facing us, in front of their respective lines of battle a Confederate and a Union soldier were having a duel. Daniel Quinn said to his comrades: "Watch me take a shot." He fired and the Union soldier fell. For this he received many encomiums on his skill. In many other battles he demonstrated his fine marksmanship, making every shot do its work. He was in the Seven Days' fight about Richmond, in the battle of Second Manassas, Harper's Ferry, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, but missed Antietam on account of illness. In the fall of 1863 he broke down; and when, sick unto death, he was about to be sent to the hospital, Captain Brailsford gave him a letter in praise of his services. General Lee issued an order, read throughout the army, discharging Daniel Quinn with the highest honors as a soldier, saying he was "fearless in battle." Governor Bonham, of South Carolina, gave him an appointment as a cadet to the Military Academy, which he entered in January, 1864, to prepare himself as an officer in the army. He had been promoted to the position of a noncommissioned officer for his gallant conduct.

After the war Daniel Quinn settled in Augusta, Ga., but in 1879 he went out West in search of health. While in New Mexico employed in railroad service he had the misfortune to lose his right leg. Returing to the South, he made his permanent home in Miami, Fla., where he says, the climate is ideal, the people hospitable, and tourists come from all parts of the world at all seasons.