Daniel P. Tyler IV was born on January 7, 1799 in Brooklyn, Connecticut to Daniel P. Tyler III (May 21, 1750 – April 29, 1832), a veteran of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and Sarah Edwards Tyler (July 11, 1761 – April 25, 1841), granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards.
After attending the public schools, the boy was sent in 1812 to Plainfield Academy to prepare for Yale, but secured instead an appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1816. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1819.
In 1824 he was ordered to the Artillery School of Practice at Fortress Monroe, Va.
Tyler resigned his commission in the United States Army in May 1834 and became an iron manufacturer, developing blast furnaces and rolling mills. He was the president of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad and, for five years, the Macon and Western Railroad in Georgia. Later, Tyler served as the superintending engineer of the Dauphin and Susquehanna Railroad and the affiliated Allentown Railroad, and became president and engineer when the former was reorganized as the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad. He had greater success in the railroad industry than he had in the manufacture of pig iron.
At the start of the Civil War, Tyler volunteered to be an aide-de-camp to Brig. Gen. Robert Patterson in April 1861. He served briefly as the colonel of the 1st Connecticut Infantry. He was appointed brigadier general in the Connecticut Militia on May 10, 1861 and commanded a division in Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell's Army of Northeastern Virginia, with which he fought in the First Battle of Bull Run. Tyler was mustered out on August 11, 1861. Though he has been assigned a substantial portion of the blame for the Union disaster at Bull Run, he was appointed to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers on March 13, 1862. He was sent to the west and commanded a brigade in the Army of the Mississippi between May 1, 1862 and July 22, 1862 during the Siege of Corinth.
At the Battle of Harpers Ferry on September 15, 1862, Tyler's division surrendered to the forces of Confederate Lieutenant General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. The Union soldiers, who were paroled after their capture, were sent to Camp Douglas, which already had been used as a prisoner of war camp for Confederates captured at the Battle of Fort Donelson, for temporary detention. Under the terms of the prisoner exchanged cartel then in effect, they had to await formal exchange before they could leave the camp. These 8, 000 paroled Union soldiers began to arrive at Camp Douglas on September 28, 1862 and Tyler took temporary command of the camp. Under Tyler's command these Union soldiers had to live under similar conditions to those endured by the Confederate prisoners from Fort Donelson. In fact, the conditions were worse because the camp had become filthy and even more run down during its occupancy by the prisoners. The parolees had a two-month stay at the camp. Tyler was relieved as commander on November 20, 1862. Later, Tyler commanded at Baltimore, at Harper's Ferry between June 13, 1863 and July 3, 1864, and finally at the District of Delaware between July 3, 1863 and January 19, 1864.
Tyler resigned his commission in the Union Army on April 6, 1864, then being older than the retirement age of 65, and moved to New Jersey. Then, in the 1870s, he moved to Alabama and founded the town of Anniston, named for his daughter-in-law. He established an iron manufacturing company and was president of the Mobile and Montgomery Railroad. He also acquired large tracts of land in Guadalupe County, Texas.
Daniel Tyler died while visiting New York City on November 30, 1882. He is buried in Hillside Cemetery, at Anniston, Alabama.
On May 28, 1832, in Norwich, Connecticut, he married Emily Lee. Three sons and two daughters survived him.
