George F. Robie

George Frank Robie was born on June 17, 1844, in Candia, New Hampshire. He came from a New England family with a tradition of military service, and while still a teenager he entered the United States Army during the opening months of the American Civil War. Over the next four years, Robie progressed from an enlisted soldier to an officer, survived some of the most difficult campaigns in which the 7th New Hampshire Infantry fought, was wounded in battle, and eventually earned the Medal of Honor for gallantry on the skirmish line before Richmond, Virginia.

Robie's first military service came in 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers following the outbreak of the Civil War. He enlisted for a short term with the 8th Massachusetts Infantry, one of the early regiments sent toward Washington to help protect the national capital during the uncertain opening weeks of the conflict. After completing that initial period of service, he returned to the Manchester, New Hampshire, area.

Rather than remaining at home, Robie soon entered military service again. He helped with the formation of Company D of the 7th New Hampshire Infantry and was appointed Sergeant. The regiment was organized for three years of service and became part of the Union Army during a period when the federal government was rapidly expanding its forces for a prolonged war.

The 7th New Hampshire Infantry would develop a demanding wartime record. Its soldiers served in several different theaters and experienced garrison duty, coastal operations, sieges, major battles, and repeated infantry combat. Robie's long association with the regiment placed him in campaigns ranging from the southern Atlantic coast to Virginia and North Carolina.

As a Sergeant, Robie carried responsibilities beyond those of an ordinary enlisted infantryman. Noncommissioned officers were essential to maintaining discipline, transmitting orders, controlling formations, and keeping soldiers organized during combat. Their leadership became especially important on skirmish lines, where troops operated in more open formations and often acted at some distance from the main body of the regiment.

Robie remained with the regiment through extended wartime service and eventually reenlisted as a veteran volunteer. By late 1863 he had advanced to First Sergeant, reflecting his experience and increasing responsibility within Company D.

One of the most severe experiences of Robie's wartime career came in Florida during the Battle of Olustee on February 20, 1864. Union forces advancing westward from Jacksonville encountered Confederate troops near Olustee Station. The battle developed into a hard-fought engagement in which Union formations suffered serious losses.

The 7th New Hampshire Infantry was heavily involved in the fighting, and Robie was slightly wounded during the battle. He survived and returned to duty, continuing his service during a year that would ultimately produce the action for which he became nationally recognized.

Later in 1864, the regiment was transferred to Virginia as Union forces increased pressure on Richmond and Petersburg. The campaign around the Confederate capital involved trench warfare, fortified positions, reconnaissance missions, raids, skirmishing, and repeated efforts to extend Union lines and threaten the transportation network supporting Richmond.

Skirmishers played an important role in these operations. They moved ahead of the main infantry formations, screened larger bodies of troops, tested enemy positions, protected movements, and frequently exchanged fire with opposing skirmishers. Service on the skirmish line exposed soldiers to significant danger because they often operated in small groups ahead of their main force.

During September 1864, while serving as a Sergeant in Company D, 7th New Hampshire Infantry, George Frank Robie distinguished himself during operations before Richmond, Virginia.

The official description of his Medal of Honor action is exceptionally brief: “Gallantry on the skirmish line.”

Although only a few words survive in the official citation, they identify the character of Robie's achievement. He displayed conspicuous courage while operating in one of the most exposed forms of infantry combat. The recognition was connected with the regiment's operations against Confederate defenses around Richmond during a period of continual reconnaissance and skirmishing.

Robie's courage did not go unnoticed within his regiment. His military career continued to advance after the Richmond operations, and he was recommended for commissioned rank.

On October 28, 1864, Robie was promoted to First Lieutenant. He initially served as an officer with Company G and later continued his service within the 7th New Hampshire. By the closing phase of the regiment's service, he was entrusted with command responsibilities, and he commanded Company B at the time associated with the regiment's final muster-out period.

The promotion is important when recording Robie's military profile. His rank during the action for which he received the Medal of Honor was Sergeant. His highest verified military rank, however, was First Lieutenant. The two ranks should therefore remain separate in his historical record.

Robie continued serving during the final months of the war as the 7th New Hampshire participated in operations in North Carolina. The regiment was involved in the campaign against Fort Fisher, the powerful Confederate fortification guarding the entrance to the Cape Fear River and the approaches to Wilmington.

Fort Fisher was one of the Confederacy's most important remaining coastal defenses. Its capture in January 1865 effectively closed Wilmington, the last major Atlantic port available to Confederate blockade runners. The fall of the fort represented a major Union victory and helped isolate the remaining Confederate armies from overseas supplies.

Robie remained in service through the final period of the war and into the months following Confederate collapse. His long wartime career had begun when he was still a teenager and had carried him through enlisted service, promotion to First Sergeant, battlefield injury, Medal of Honor-level gallantry, and finally commissioned service as a First Lieutenant.

Despite the significance of his September 1864 action, Robie did not receive his Medal of Honor immediately.

The Medal of Honor had been established during the Civil War, with the Army version authorized by Congress in 1862. It became the United States government's principal decoration for recognizing exceptional military conduct. Civil War awards were made for a wide range of acts, including leadership under fire, flag captures, rescues, assaults on fortified positions, and extraordinary gallantry in direct combat.

Many Civil War soldiers received the decoration years after the events for which they were recognized. Robie was one of them.

His Medal of Honor was formally presented on June 12, 1883, almost nineteen years after his gallantry before Richmond.

Because Robie's Medal of Honor was presented in 1883, the historically correct database designation is Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1883. The year 1883 represents the award and presentation year, while the heroic action itself occurred during the Civil War in September 1864.

No additional clasp, bar, star, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified for his Medal of Honor. His decoration therefore remains one Medal of Honor with no device or clasp.

A Civil War Campaign Medal has not been included in Robie's verified ribbon rack. His Civil War service is unquestionable, but the later establishment of a campaign medal for Civil War service does not automatically establish individual entitlement or issuance to every surviving veteran.

For this profile, only recipient-specific evidence is sufficient to add such a medal. Without verified documentation showing that George Frank Robie personally received or was specifically entitled to the Civil War Campaign Medal, it remains excluded from his final medal list.

His verified award history therefore consists of Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1883, with no additional device or clasp.

After leaving military service, Robie eventually established himself in civilian life. He maintained connections with veterans of the Union Army and became a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the influential postwar organization created by Union veterans.

He was at one time associated with Louis Bell Post of the Grand Army of the Republic in Manchester, New Hampshire. Later, after relocating to Texas, he became associated with the veteran community in Galveston and helped maintain the memory and fellowship of former Union soldiers living far from the states in which they had originally served.

Galveston became Robie's principal home during much of his postwar life. By the later years of his life he was working there as a bookkeeper.

The transition from Civil War officer to civilian bookkeeper illustrates the path followed by many veterans. The soldiers who had fought through enormous national upheaval returned to ordinary occupations and communities, even while veterans' organizations helped preserve their shared wartime experiences.

Robie's Medal of Honor connected his later civilian life directly to the courage he had shown as a young Sergeant. By the time he received the medal in 1883, almost two decades had passed since the operations before Richmond. The presentation formally preserved an act of battlefield gallantry that might otherwise have survived only in regimental memory.

Robie died in Galveston, Texas, in June 1891, at only forty-six years of age. He was buried in New City Cemetery in Galveston.

For many years his grave did not prominently communicate the distinction he had earned during the Civil War. More than a century after his death, renewed historical research brought greater attention to his story.

In November 1997, members of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War held a formal memorial dedication at his grave in Galveston. A Medal of Honor headstone had been placed there to ensure that visitors could recognize the significance of the soldier buried at the site. The ceremony helped restore George Frank Robie's place in the public memory of Civil War veterans and Medal of Honor recipients.

Robie's military career is notable for more than the Medal of Honor alone. He entered wartime service as a young volunteer, served in more than one regiment, became a Sergeant and then First Sergeant, reenlisted as a veteran volunteer, suffered a wound at Olustee, demonstrated gallantry during the operations before Richmond, and eventually rose to commissioned rank as a First Lieutenant.

His Medal of Honor citation, however, reduces the defining moment of that career to four simple words: “Gallantry on the skirmish line.”

Those words represent the dangerous reality of infantry service before Richmond in 1864. Skirmishers operated at the forward edge of Union positions, often exposed to enemy fire while carrying out reconnaissance, screening, and combat duties. Robie's conduct in that environment was considered sufficiently distinguished to warrant the highest military decoration of the United States.

George Frank Robie is therefore remembered as a Union soldier of the American Civil War, a Sergeant of Company D, 7th New Hampshire Infantry at the time of his heroic action, and later a First Lieutenant. His verified decoration, Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1883, commemorates the gallantry he demonstrated before Richmond in September 1864 and preserves his place among the Medal of Honor recipients of the Civil War.