Darius Hinds

Darius Hinds was born in September of 1832, in Bennington County, Vermont, probably the son of Hannah (b. 1798).

Darius and his family left Vermont and moved west, eventually settling in western Michigan. By 1850 Darius was attending school and along with his mother (?) Vermont native Hannah living with Adim (?) Hinds (b. 1820 in Vermont) and his wife Catharine on a farm in Ada, Kent County. By 1860 Darius was a farm laborer working for and/or living with Edward Pettis in Ada.

He stood 5’6” with blue eyes, sandy hair and a light complexion and was 29 years old when he enlisted in Company A on June 10, 1861. He was wounded in the right arm on August 29, 1862, at Second Bull Run, and subsequently hospitalized in Judiciary Square hospital, Washington, DC, where his right arm was amputated. Darius was discharged on November 12, 1862, at Judiciary Square hospital for his wounds.

After his discharge from the army Darius returned to Ada, and in 1862 applied for and received a pension (no. 10672).

In April of 1863 Darius wrote to a former comrade of Company A, Captain George Judd, asking for help in finding work. “Mr. Hinds,” wrote the Grand Rapids Eagle on April 15, “is now at his home in Ada, in which Township, at the last election, he ran on the Unconditional Union ticket for Constable and Collector, but was defeated by the Copperheads. He is a poor man, but a true patriot and hero. In his letter to the Captain he says among other things: ‘I have had a hard time with my arm; it is very tender yet, and the nerves pain me a good deal; but I have never seen the time when I was sorry that I enlisted in Company A, as a private, to fight the rebels. And if I had two arms again, I would willingly run my chances again in the same place. If you can find a situation for me in the army, where I can make myself useful, I would like it and will go back again’.”

Judd was apparently successful, and Darius reentered the service in the Second Regiment, Veterans’ Reserve Corps, on September 22, 1863, at Detroit for 3 years. (There is one “S.” Hinds listed as a guard at Camp Lee, the draft rendezvous in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as of January 10, 1864.)

There is no further record.

In fact by 1870 Darius was working as a clerk for the Interior Department and living in Washington’s Second Ward, with the family of Andrew Dinsmore, who had also served in the Old Third. (Andrew himself had gotten a position in the government as well.) Darius was living in Washington, DC, when he married Elizabeth A. Bailey, on September 26, 1870, at the Fourth Presbyterian church in Washington.

Darius died of consumption on March 25, 1875, reportedly in Kent County, Missouri, although this may in fact have been Kent County, Michigan. However, no burial record has been found for Darius in Kent County, Michigan.

In 1875 his widow was living in Grand Rapids, Kent County when she applied for and received a pension (no. 180310).