Robert Donnell Patterson

Youngest of 10 children of Mann Patterson (1772-1835) and his second wife Mary Polley Cabe (1791-1854), in 1860 he was a 28 year old farmer living with three siblings at University Station in Orange County, NC. He enlisted at Fort Macon on 18 June 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company G, 27th North Carolina Infantry on 22 June.

He was with his company at Harpers Ferry and in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was sent home on sick furlough in January 1863, returning to duty on 30 April 1863, when he was elected Junior 2nd Lieutenant. He was severely wounded by a gunshot to his groin or bowels at Bristoe Station, VA on 14 October 1863, in a Richmond, VA hospital to 17 (or 21) November, and, except for a brief period with his company in March 1864, furloughed home as disabled for the rest of the war. Even so, he was promoted to Senior 2nd Lieutenant on 8 September 1864.

In 1870 he was farming with his brother Mann in Durham, NC. By 1880 he had his own farm there and in 1900 was at Chapel Hill.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3 and J.A. Graham's Descriptive Book of the Orange Guards in his Papers;2 thanks to Steve Peck for the nudge to look deeper into the Descriptive Book. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1900. His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture, from a photograph of unknown provenance shared by Eric Bruno Borgman.

He married Annie Olympia Donnell (relative?, 1846-1916) in November 1874 and they had 6 children.

His half-nephew Willie T Patterson was also in Company G and at Sharpsburg.

12/17/1831; Orange County, NC

01/29/1905; Orange County, NC; burial in Patterson Family Cemetery, Chapel Hill Township, Orange County, NC