Nathaniel Robie was born on July 5, 1834, in Orange County, Vermont, to John Robie and Sally Bond. His father was a farmer. Robie attended school in Bradford and worked on his father’s farm. He married Frances Elizabeth Freeman on December 31, 1860, in Fairlee, Vermont.
Robie enlisted in the Union army on May 2, 1861, and mustered in as a private in Company D of the 1st Vermont Infantry. The regiment spent the next three months at Fortress Monroe before mustering out on August 15, 1861. After a few months at home, Robie enlisted as a sergeant in Company D of the 8th Vermont Infantry on November 22, 1861. He was wounded on May 27, 1863, in the Siege of Port Hudson. He earned a promotion to 2nd lieutenant sometime in 1864, but he received a severe leg wound at the Battle of Opequon on September 19, 1864. He returned to Vermont to recover, and he died in St. Johnsbury on December 6, 1864. According to one doctor, he “died from gun shot wound, congestion of liver and spleen, the result of exposure to the malarial influence of southern climate, combined with abscess of liver.” His daughter Sarah Dyantha Robie was born soon afterward, on January 25, 1865.