Charles E. Leland was born around 1844 in Massachusetts to Charles and Martha Leland. His father was a book maker who owned $850 of personal property by 1860. The family lived in Walpole, Massachusetts, until the 1850s, when they moved to Chelsea, Massachusetts.
He enlisted in the Union army on July 16, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company B of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry. The regiment took part in the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the Battle of Gettysburg. In July 1862, he hoped that President Abraham Lincoln would call a draft, writing that, "If a man has not patriotism enough to come out now he never will have." He expressed frustration with the wartime bounty system, adding, "we are out here, and been working for the U.S. for a year, and the new recruits will get about twice the money that we will, and wont see one half the work that we have." He died at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.