Henry P. Elliott was born around 1833 in Landaff, New Hampshire, to Hiram and Sarah Elliott. His father was a farmer who owned $396 of personal property by 1860. He probably grew up in Bath, New Hampshire, and by 1850, he was working as a farmer. He married Mary Bennett on May 2, 1852, and they had at least two children: Benjamin, born on December 15, 1854; and Charles, born on October 17, 1856. They lived in Lisbon, New Hampshire, and Elliott worked as a painter. By 1860, he owned $200 of personal property.
Elliott enlisted in the Union army on August 22, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company G of the 11th New Hampshire Infantry on September 2. The regiment took part in the Battle of Fredericksburg and the siege of Vicksburg. A commanding office later noted that he “did his duty nobly and well” and “gained a name for courage, patriotism, and fidelity.” He eventually earned a promotion to corporal. He remained devoted to the Union. In June 1863, he wrote that fighting was “enough to siken eny one.” Nonetheless, he remained devoted to the Union, writing that “in the end we shal have a free country…we have got to sustain what our fourfathers fought for and then our children can come up under a free Constitution.”
He died of “malaria fever” on board a transport ship near Memphis, Tennessee, on August 9, 1863. His captain, George E. Pingree, observed that Elliott died “without a groan, without a struggle, unconcious that his end was so near.” Although he “did not die in battle,” Pingree wrote, “his fatal illness was caught while he was toiling for his imperrilled Country, and the people of his native town can but respect his memory, and count him as one of their Heroes.”