Robert P. McRae was born around 1833 in Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the Union army on August 15, 1861, and mustered in as a private in Company M of the 11^th Pennsylvania Cavalry on August 26. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 10 inches tall, with brown hair and blue eyes. The regiment spent the next two years stationed in Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia. In May 1863, he confessed that the "whistling of the bullets do not sound very pleasant and for my part I never wish to see another fight but if I do I will try and do my duty." He remained loyal to General George B. McClellan, writing that "McClellan is the man we want to lead us but it happens he is a Democrat and does not suit the abolitionists but he is the idol of the army of the Potomac And it has met with no success since he has been removed." 

 

In July 1863, an artillery shell exploded close to his head, which caused intermittent deafness for the rest of his life. McRae was promoted to corporal on August 7, 1863, and to sergeant on March 1, 1864. He was captured on June 11, 1864, during the siege of Petersburg, and he spent the next few months imprisoned in Millen, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. In October 1864, a Confederate prison guard reportedly “struck [him] on the head with a musket…fracturing [his] skull.” His time as a prisoner of war shattered his health, and he received a parole on December 16, 1864. The following month, he received treatment for “anaema and debility from starvation.” He was finally exchanged on March 25, 1865, and he mustered out in Manchester, Virginia, on August 13, 1865.

 

McRae settled in Jefferson, West Virginia, after the war and worked as a laborer. He married Viola Victoria Riddle there around 1878. His wartime injuries impaired his health for the rest of his life. He reportedly had “fits at intervals” for the rest of his life, and he suffered from “partial paralysis of [his] right side.” In 1880, he was unable to work for at least six months, and neighbors later confirmed that “he [had] been so disabled from paralysis as to be wholly unable to perform manual labor.”

 

He applied for a federal pension in January 1890 and eventually secured one. He attempted to increase the amount several years later, and a surgeon testified that “malnutrition and digestive disorders have reduced claimant until he is quite incapable of performing manual labor.” The Pension Bureau denied the increase in March 1901, but Congress approved it the following year in recognition of his “good military record, his advanced age and disability, and great poverty.” He died in West Virginia in early 1908.

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