Duncan K. McRae was an American lawyer, consul, and soldier.
Background
Duncan Kirkland McRae was born on August 16, 1820, at Fayetteville, (then Campbelltown), North Carolina. He was the son of John and Margaret S. Kirkland McRae.
His grandfather, Duncan McRae, came to America from Scotland in 1773 or 1774 and became a leader in public affairs in Campbelltown.
His father, postmaster and editor in the same city, numbered among his friends many men famous in American history, among them General Lafayette, whom he accompanied through North Carolina on his American tour in 1825 and entertained at his home.
Education
Duncan Kirkland McRae was educated at the College of William and Mary, Virginia, and at the University of North Carolina, and was admitted to the bar at twenty-one.
Career
As a lawyer, McRae early developed a wide reputation for eloquence and quickness of repartee. One of the first incidents in his vigorous and varied career was a mission to Mexico City as a bearer of dispatches for the Department of State early in 1842.
Returning to North Carolina, he was elected to the legislature of 1842, his first and most successful political venture. He subsequently practiced law in Raleigh until 1851, when he removed to Wilmington to engage in banking.
As an independent candidate for Congress, he was commissioned to carry the famous Ostend Manifesto from London to Washington. His service at Paris fell in the stirring days of the Second Empire and lasted until ill health compelled his resignation in 1857.
A few months after his return to North Carolina, and his establishment of a law office at New Bern, he plunged into politics for the third time, running independently for governor in opposition to John Willis Ellis in the campaign of 1858, with the unofficial support of the disorganized remnants of the American or Know-Nothing party.
At the opening of the Civil War, he was appointed colonel of the 5th North Carolina Regiment by his late political opponent, Governor Ellis. Beginning with the first battle of Manassas, he took an active part in the Virginia and Pennsylvania campaigns of 1861 and 1862. At Williamsburg, he led his men in a desperately gallant charge, ranked by an English war correspondent with that of the Old Guard at Waterloo and the Light Brigade at Balaklava.
Of this charge, General Hancock of the Federal forces said, "The Fifth North Carolina and Twenty-Fourth Virginia deserve to have the word immortal inscribed on their banners". Wounded at Williamsburg and again at Sharpsburg, September 17, 1862, he retired from active service.
Shortly afterward, he was sent by Governor Vance of North Carolina on an important and successful mission to Europe to find a market for Southern cotton and state bonds and to arrange for the purchase of supplies. As a result, the North Carolina troops were the best equipped in the Southern army. His European mission occupied almost a year. He then campaigned for a seat in the Confederate Congress but was defeated.
In 1864-65, he edited the Confederate at Raleigh, an administration organ to encourage Southern morale. The new political régime in 1865 forced him to leave the state. He practiced law for fifteen years at Memphis, Tennessee, then, after a few months at Chicago, returned in 1880 to Wilmington, North Carolina, where he established his last legal practice.
He died in Brooklyn, New York, February 12, 1888.
Achievements
McRae he served as attorney, diplomat and state legislator. He was an officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, the wounds received in it complicating his later life.
Views
In 1853, as an independent candidate for Congress from the third district, he advocated the distribution of the proceeds from the sale of public lands among the states for internal improvements but withdrew from the campaign to become American consul at Paris under President Pierce.
Always individualistic, high-spirited, and undisposed to yield to party restraints or popular sentiment, McRae favored a positive program of economic development as against what he believed undue emphasis on the slavery question and was defeated.
Connections
In 1845, McRae married Louise Virginia Henry, daughter of Judge Louis D. Henry of Raleigh. They had three daughters.
