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He was born in Independence, Iowa, the son of Eugene Hanson Ely, a county superintendent of schools and a regional representative for Lippincott and Company, a schoolbook publisher, and Julia Lamb, the daughter of a Congregationalist missionary to the western Indians.
A large, strong, athletic youth, Ely attended public schools in Iowa and did farm work during the summers before becoming a rural schoolteacher at seventeen.
Ely compensated for a poor academic and disciplinary record--he graduated sixty-third among the sixty-five members of the Class of 1891--by becoming captain of the football team, a varsity boxer, and a member of the academy color guard.
In 1897, shortly before his promotion to first lieutenant, he was assigned as the professor of military science and tactics at the State University of Iowa.
In 1905 he was an honor graduate of the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth and was rewarded by further assignment to the Staff College, from which he graduated in 1906.
In 1897, shortly before his promotion to first lieutenant, he was assigned as the professor of military science and tactics at the State University of Iowa.
When the war with Spain began in 1898, Ely volunteered the University of Iowa cadet corps for federal service, but his offer was refused. He then served as federal mustering officer for Iowa and Mississippi.
In 1899 Ely rejoined the Twenty-second Infantry Regiment when it sailed for the Philippines. During the Philippine Insurrection (1899 - 1902), he served as regimental quartermaster, regimental commissary, and company commander.
He so impressed Brigadier General Frederick Funston that he was appointed commander of Funston's special mounted scouts, an elite unit that performed reconnaissance duties in northern Luzon.
While in the Philippines, he was promoted to captain in the Twenty-sixth Infantry; he also served as regimental adjutant and as an adjutant general for the Third District, Department South Luzon, as well as a depot commissary.
After his return from the Philippines in 1903, Ely alternated between duty with the Twenty-sixth Infantry and officer training. As a troop officer he performed effectively as a company commander, rifle instructor, and team marksman. In 1905 he was an honor graduate of the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth and was rewarded by further assignment to the Staff College, from which he graduated in 1906.
He then spent six months' leave in Germany observing maneuvers before returning to his regiment.
In 1908 Ely volunteered to return to the Philippines as a major in the Philippine Scouts, a native regiment in the United States Army. He served in the islands until 1912.
After brief service as a company commander in the Nineteenth Infantry, Ely was promoted to major, Seventh Infantry, in 1913 and served with the regiment in Texas. Like much of the army, Ely's regiment was deployed to protect the border settlements from Mexican raids and to train for a possible invasion of Mexico.
In 1914 Ely participated in the occupation of Veracruz as acting commander of his regiment. He then served as a staff officer and inspector-instructor of the Indiana National Guard during the National Guard mobilization of 1916.
He also attended the Army War College in 1915-1916. America's entry into World War I provided Ely, then a major, with further opportunity for military advancement. Promoted to lieutenant colonel in May 1917, he commanded an officer training camp in Texas, but the War Department soon assigned him to observe the Allied armies on the Western Front.
A temporary colonel and member of the General Staff, he joined General John J. Pershing's American Expeditionary Force (AEF) headquarters in July 1917, and was made AEF provost marshal.
In September 1917 he was appointed chief of staff, First Division. Ely's temperament and division problems shortened his service as chief of staff, but he made his reputation as a combat commander in the First Division's Twenty-eighth Infantry Regiment.
After trench combat along the St. Mihiel salient in the winter of 1918, the division deployed to Picardy in April to meet one of a series of German offensives.
On May 28, 1918, Ely's regiment made the first major attack mounted by the AEF, the assault on the town of Cantigny. Although Cantigny was not strategically important, its capture and defense against six German counterattacks heartened the entire AEF and French high command because it proved the effectiveness of American troops in heavy combat.
For his dogged command of his regiment in the face of heavy casualties, Ely was promoted to temporary brigadier general and transferred to the Third Brigade, Second Division, in July 1918.
As an AEF brigade commander, Ely won a Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in the capture of Vierzy during the Second Division's July 1918 attack at Soissons--the first major Allied counterattack against the Germans.
He then led the brigade in successful attacks at St. Mihiel and Mont Blanc as the Allied-American armies hammered the Germans back toward the Rhine. Promoted to temporary major general in October 1918, Ely commanded the Fifth Division in the later stages of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the largest action by the AEF.
At the time of the Armistice, Ely's division was one of the most effective organizations in the First Army and was severely punishing the Germans along the Meuse River. For his "rare qualities of leadership" as a regiment, brigade, and division commander, Ely won a Distinguished Service Medal and five Croix de Guerre.
He then served on occupation duty in Luxembourg and Germany until his return to the United States in 1919. Ely returned to less dramatic duties and reduced rank with the demobilization of the AEF, but his wartime achievements assured his promotion and significant assignments in the postwar army.
In 1920 he became a permanent colonel and then brigadier general while commanding the Third Brigade, Second Division. In recognition of his achievement as an infantry commander and for his interest in army education, Ely became commandant of the Army General Service School at Fort Leavenworth (1921 - 1923), and of the Army War College in Washington, D. C. (1923 - 1927), where he emphasized the education of future combat commanders and the study of strategy and international relations.
He finished his career as a major general in command of the Second Corps Area in the eastern United States until his retirement in 1931. During the postwar period, Ely was an outspoken advocate of military preparedness.
In 1930 he was a dark-horse candidate for army chief of staff. During his long retirement, Ely did not take a civilian job, but remained in touch with the army through his three army officer sons and former subordinates, and he often appeared as a speaker at veterans' reunions and patriotic meetings.
He died in Atlantic Beach, Florida.
As Governor of American Samoa, Hanson believed that the native Samoans had a good way of life, and did little to interfere with established practices on the islands.
Ely was a strong disciplinarian, but would do anything to provide for his troops.
He was contentious, ambitious, and candid with his fellow officers, whom he sometimes intimidated with his physical size and appearance and his "will, force, and fighting disposition. " Diplomatic and conciliatory when he had to be, Ely could not abide self-serving and slipshod performance, and his criticism of slack performance made him seem "strong and tempestuous" to his peers and superiors.
His transfer to Iowa City was welcome since the town was the home of his wife, Mary Eliza Barber, whom he had married in 1891. They had four children.
In 1907 his wife died following the birth of their fourth child.
On July 6, 1910, he married Eleanor Ashton Boyle.
