Lawrence Hager Dilley was born on March 15, 1832, in Warren County, New Jersey. By 1850, he was working as a laborer in Roxbury, New Jersey. He married Amanda Bowman in German Valley, New Jersey, on December 31, 1853, and they had at least eight children: James, born around 1858; Cortland, born around 1860; Mary, born around 1861; Margaret, born around 1863; Sherman, born around 1865; Cyrus, born around 1866; Jacob, born around 1869; and Franklin, born around 1875. They lived in Roxbury, and Dilley worked as a master mason. By 1860, he owned $100 of personal property.

 

He enlisted in the Union army on September 3, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company H of the 31^st New Jersey Infantry on September 17. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 6¼ inches tall, with dark hair and brown eyes. The regiment took part in the Battle of Chancellorsville, and according to one report he was “twice wounded” during his term of enlistment. He mustered out on June 24, 1863. He enlisted again on August 8, 1864, and he mustered in as a private in Company B of the 51^st Pennsylvania Infantry later that day. In February 1865, he “hope[d] that every one will cry out peace (on honerble tearms) untill it is brought to bare and put a stop to this flow of blood and treasure and be united together again still stronger then we ever was before. I could return home a happy man.” At some point late in the war, he apparently deserted from his regiment, reportedly receiving a furlough and failing to return.

 

Dilley settled in Washington, New Jersey, after the war and resumed his work as a stone mason. By 1870, he owned $511 of personal property. The family moved to Centralia, Kansas, in the late 1870s, and then to Oronoka, Michigan, sometime in the late 1880s. He applied for a federal pension in April 1880 but never received one, probably because he was listed as a deserter. He died in Berrien Springs, Michigan, on August 13, 1907.

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