Career
An abolitionist, he served as a civilian administrator in the Union Army, where he was a labor superintendent of freedmen on plantations at Portuguese Royal, South Carolina during the American Civil War. This included Seaside Plantation. lieutenant is here that he transcribed many slave songs with tunes and lyrics, later published in Slave Songs of the United States which is the first collection of American folk music
Charles Ware was also an educator in Boston, Massachusetts.