Born on July 16, 1836 in the town of New-Bern, Major Daves was the grandson of Major John Daves, who had served in the Revolutionary War. Major John Daves had two sons who grew to maturity: John Pugh Daves, born in New-Bern July 23, 1789 and died there on March 21, 1838; and Thomas Haynes Daves, born in New-Bern, September 24, 1791, died in Alabama September 11, 1839. The elder of these two brothers, John Pugh Daves, was a highly educated gentleman, who graduated at Princeton in the class of 1807. He married three times. His third wife was Elizabeth Batchelor Graham, daughter of Edward Graham, a noted lawyer of New-Bern, and this lady was the mother of Graham Daves.

John Pugh Daves died when Graham was only two years old. His mother, however, lived until May 9, 1885, when her son Graham was in his forty-ninth year.
Graham Daves spent his childhood in his native town, and the first school he attended New-Bern Academy. He entered the Maryland Military Academy, at Oxford, Maryland in the Fall session of 1851. He remained here two years; and in 1853 entered Trinity College, at Hartford, Connecticut, where he graduated in 1857. Wanting to study law, he became a pupil of Judge Richmond M. Pearson, afterward chief-justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
On January 1, 1859, John W. Ellis was inaugurated as governor of North Carolina. This gentleman had married a sister of Graham Daves, and he appointed him as his private secretary. From that time until the death of Governor Ellis, shortly after the outbreak of the war between the States, Mr. Daves resided in Raleigh.

Governor Ellis died in 1861, on July 1st; and on the 7th of that month Mr. Daves entered the Confederate Army as first lieutenant of the Twelfth North Carolina Regiment, then commanded by Colonel J. Johnston Pettigrew. He became adjutant of this regiment a few weeks later, on July 24th. The Twelfth Regiment became known as the Twenty-second at a later period, when the North Carolina troops were re-arranged.

Adjutant Daves served with the above regiment until 1862, being stationed during that time at Raleigh, and later in Virginia at Richmond, Brook's Station, and (for the greater time) at Evansport, now called Quantico. At Evansport his regiment was employed in erecting and operating the heavy batteries which so long commanded the passage of the Potomac at this point. While in Virginia during this period, his regiment was brigaded with the troops of other States, and among its brigade commanders were Generals Isaac Ridgeway Trimble, of Maryland and Samuel G. French of Mississippi.

On April 1, 1862, General French was transferred to the command of Wilmington, North Carolina. Thereupon Lieutenant Daves was placed on duty with him as assistant adjutant-general with the rank of captain. In July, 1862 the command to which Captain Daves was attached was ordered to Petersburg, Virginia. He was promoted to the rank of major on November 5, 1862.

At Hillsboro, North Carolina, on November 27, 1862, Major Daves married Alice Lord de Rosset, member of an old Cape Fear family and daughter of Doctor Armand J. de Rosset, of Wilmington. The only child of this marriage was a son, who died in infancy. Mrs. Daves died at Wilmington on September 2, 1897.

Major Daves remained with the troops in Virginia until June, 1863, when he was ordered to Mississippi, and there he became assistant adjutant-general attached to the staff of General Joseph E. Johnston. After the Confederate forces lost Vicksburg, Major Daves left Mississippi and returned to North Carolina. He resigned his commission on November 16, 1863, shortly thereafter reporting to the Bureau of Conscription, by which he was enrolled as a private and assigned by detail to the Conscript Office at Raleigh, where he remained in a clerical capacity until July 7, 1864. On this date he was commissioned aide-de-camp (with rank of first lieutenant) on the staff of Lieutenant-General Theophilus Hunter Holmes, with whom he served until March, 1865, and then he was temporarily transferred to Hoke's Division in Hardee's corps. He was surrendered a few weeks later, near Greensboro, his parole bearing the date of April 26, 1865.