Enrolled in Company H, 61st Regiment of Illinois Volunteers on the 10th day of December 1861 as a 1st Lieutenant and was honorably discharged at Benton Barracks, Missouri on the 15th day of June 1865. He was captured near Murfreesboro, Tennessee December 15, 1864. He was paroled in an exchange with a Confederate Colonel Prisoner of War and released April 20, 1865 at Benton Barracks, Missouri.

Colonel Grass was born 26 Sept 1824 in Rockport, Spencer Co., Indiana. His parents were Alfred Hynes Grass and Susannah Snyder Grass. He had 17 brothers and sisters. The family lived in St. Francisville, Illinois when he enlisted.

Daniel marred Adeline H. Shepherd, she died in St. Francisville. After the death of his father in 1856, and practicing law for a while he went to Montgomery Co., Kansas in 1870. In 1876 he was elected to the State Senate from his district and served one term. He returned to Coffeyville, KS where he resided until his death 21st Dec. 1894.