D. H. Robertson was born around 1834 in Tennessee to Rebecca Robertson. His father died sometime before 1860. His mother was a farmer who owned $40,000 of real estate and $50,000 of personal property by 1860. The family moved to Texas in the late 1830s or early 1840s. By 1860, Robertson was working as a physician in Independence, Texas, and he owned $500 of personal property.

He enlisted in the Confederate army on July 15, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in the 4^th Texas Infantry. Confederate forces transferred him to the 5^th Texas Infantry on November 1, 1861. He fell ill during the summer of 1862, and he spent some time in a hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. He eventually recovered and rejoined the regiment. He was wounded in the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 30, 1862, and he spent the next two years furloughed in Texas. In the fall of 1864, he became a staff surgeon.

In January 1866, he declared the Civil War “disastrous” for the South. He observed, however, that the “people of Texas have suffered less during the war than those of any other state,” and he hoped residents would ultimately “repair and recover our losses.” He opposed emancipation and denounced the “dangerous experiments our farmers are making this year with the freedmen.”

Robertson died sometime after January 1866.