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Robert I. McCain was a Confederate veteran who lived the last few years of his life near Keller. He lies buried in Keller’s Bourland Cemetery. His headstone says he was born March 25, 1831.
Robert I. McCain’s older brother, Thomas William McCain, was also a Confederate soldier in the same regiment as Robert. Thomas also later moved to the Keller area and lived very near to Robert. However, to this point we have not included Thomas in the project since he did not lived within the study area as it is defined, and we have not discovered any records about his burial. The McCain’s were in Chickasaw County, Mississippi when the 1850 census was taken...apparently Thomas and his wife Adeline, with three of Thomas's younger siblings.
In 1860 Robert I. McCain was living in Wood County, Texas with his wife, Eliza A. They had two children by then...Robert C., born about 1858 in Mississippi and Thomas D., born about 1860 in Texas. Next door to them was Thomas W. McCain, born about 1828 in Alabama, with his family.
A short account of Robert’s Confederate service appeared in Mrs. Mamie Yeary’s 1912 book, Reminiscences of the Boys in Gray, 1861-1865: “R. J. McCAIN, Keller, Texas--Born near Talladega, Ala. Enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862, at Starville, as Corporal in Company F, Bate's Regiment, W. S. Henderson, first Captain and Bates, first Colonel. We changed from Company C., to Company F, but remained in the same Regiment. Was in the ranks when Gen. Lee surrendered. Was in the battles of Velasco, Galveston, and many others. Surrendered at Velasco. I was true to the cause and glad to know we were right."
This regiment was Bates Regiment, 13th Texas Infantry. The mistakes often seen in showing his middle name as “J” are probably a result of the similarity of handwritten capital I's and J's. His gravestone very plainly says “I”, while Mrs. Yeary probably mistook it for a J, especially since the middle initial I is extremely unusual in Anglo-American given names.
McCain’s official records in the National Archives say he enlisted at Tyler, Texas on July 14, 1862 for the war’s duration. His name appears on a list of men absent from the regiment at Velasco, Texas dated October 25, 1863; having been furloughed from a hospital in Houston on August 20, 1863. In June 1864 at Velasco, Texas he was transferred from Co. C to Co. H of Bate’s Regiment. During the month of August, 1864 he was absent with leave in Wood County, Texas; his leave was for fifty days and was issued on August 15, 1864. With those exceptions, he was present on all the surviving muster rolls of the 13th Texas Infantry for the time in which he was a part of the regiment.
By the time the 1870 census was taken, Robert and his family had moved to McLennan County, Texas, and had settled west of the Brazos River. In that year, his family included his wife, Eliza (born in Mississippi), Robert McCain (born about 1857 in Mississippi); Thomas McCain (born about 1860 in Texas); and Leona McCain (born about 1866 in Texas). Living in the same household were Robert’s brother, Thomas (no wife is shown in the census), and five of Thomas’s children.
Robert I. McCain’s home is shown on the 1895 Sam Street Map of Tarrant County, Texas. In modern-day terms, it sat on unincorporated county land, north-northwest of old downtown Keller, west of Highway 377 and the railroad, a short distance SW of the intersection of Jennifer Court and Highway 377.
According to the 1910 Tarrant County census, Robert was born in Alabama to two Tennesseans. He and his wife, E. A. McCain, had been married fifty-five years, hence about 1855. She was born in Mississippi to an American father and an Alabama mother. She had given birth to ten children, five of whom were still alive in 1910.
Robert I. McCain died August 4, 1910 at his home near Keller, and was buried in Bourland Cemetery there. Mrs. Eliza A. McCain was born October 20, 1838 and died February 23, 1912, according to her headstone at Bourland Cemetery. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. McCain has a death certificate on file in the Texas vital statistics office. Neither of them filed an application for a Texas Confederate pension.
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