R. E. (Robert Ekin) McBride

author

R. E. (Robert Ekin) McBride

b. 1846

A Civil War veteran turned his memories of campaign life into a vivid first-person account of the Army of the Potomac. His surviving work offers a ground-level view of marches, battles, and soldierly routine from the Wilderness to Appomattox.

1 Audiobook

In The Ranks: From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House The War, as Seen and Experienced by a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac

In The Ranks: From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House The War, as Seen and Experienced by a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac

by R. E. (Robert Ekin) McBride

About the author

Born in 1846, R. E. McBride is identified in library and publishing records as Robert Ekin McBride. He is best known for In the Ranks: From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House, a memoir-style account of the Civil War told from the perspective of an ordinary Union soldier.

Catalog records for the book note that McBride served in the 40th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, and the work itself has been preserved by Project Gutenberg, Archive.org, and major library catalogs. The book remains his clearest legacy as a writer, valued for its direct, personal picture of army life rather than for grand speeches or distant history.

Very little biographical information about McBride was readily confirmed beyond his birth year and authorship, so the details of his later life remain unclear from the sources consulted here. Even so, his writing still stands as a useful and human record of one soldier's experience of the war.