Robert B. Taylor was born around 1841 in New York to Robert John Taylor and Mary Smith. His father was a Scottish-born farmer who owned $4,530 of real estate and $1,850 of personal property in 1860. The family moved to Spring Valley, Wisconsin, around 1844. By 1860, Taylor was working on his father’s farm. He enlisted in the Union army on August 31, 1861, and mustered in as a private in Company G of the 13th Wisconsin Infantry later that day. The regiment spent most of the war on garrison duty in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama. He died of disease in Paducah, Kentucky, on April 17, 1863.