Black Cherry

Robert Hale Merriman (November 17, 1908 – c. April 2, 1938) was an American doctoral student who fought with the Republican forces in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. He was killed while commanding the Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the International Brigades.^[1]

Merriman was born in Eureka, California,^[2] the son of a lumberjack.^[3] He grew up in Santa Cruz, graduated from Santa Cruz High School in 1925,^[1] and went on to study economics at the University of Nevada. To earn some extra money while attending the university, he joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) where he received basic training with arms.

On May 9 1932, he graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics, and later that same day wed Frances Marion Stone, one year his junior.^[4] Upon completing his degree, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve. Later that year he returned to California as a doctoral student in economics at the University of California, Berkeley and worked as a teaching assistant.

He became interested in Soviet agricultural economics, and in 1935 exercised a one-year scholarship to study in Moscow. His wife accompanied him.

Later, when applying to join the XV International Brigade in Spain, he stated on his application that when in Russia he had spent a year studying at 'a communist academy' - perhaps referring to the International Lenin School - then had gone on to study the Soviet agricultural economy. However, his wife's memoir makes no mention of the Lenin School or other communist school, but recounts Merriman's visits to Soviet farm collectives, discussions with Soviet economic officials, and other activities concerned with the agricultural economy.

In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. Merriman became convinced that defeating the fascists in Spain and then Germany would prevent a second World War,^[1] and against his wife's wishes, he left for Spain before his scholarship year was up to volunteer with the Republican side. His wife temporarily remained in Moscow.

Soon after his arrival in Spain on January 11, 1937, Merriman found his way to the town of Albacete,^[3] location of the headquarters and training bases for the XV International Brigade, and was quickly accepted into the brigade (at this time, he began keeping a diary, which he maintained until November 1, 1937). As few volunteers had any military experience, Merriman's ROTC training meant that, at the age of 28, he was at first put in charge of the training of the 428-man^[5] Lincoln Battalion (later to be popularly known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade), and then by the end of January, appointed battalion commander.^[6] He held the rank of Captain of the Spanish Republic. ^{[citation needed]}

The Lincoln Battalion, one of four XV International Brigade battalions and composed mostly of American volunteers, first saw action at the Battle of Jarama (6–27 February 1937).^[7] Their role was to prevent Nationalist forces taking the main Madrid-Valencia road. The Lincolns took appalling casualties, particularly in the assault of Pingarrón, which became known as Suicide Hill.^[8] Merriman himself sustained a serious arm and shoulder wound.

While recovering, he spent time as Chief of XV Brigade Staff.^[9] His place as battalion commander was taken by US Army veteran Martin Hourihan. On March 2, Merriman cabled his wife to join him in Spain. She helped nurse him back to health and also joined the International Brigades.

The depleted Lincolns, together with the depleted British Battalion and an understrength second US battalion (the George Washington Battalion), were reorganized into a regiment commanded by Briton Jock Cunningham. A second regiment of the XV International Brigade was composed of remnants of the Dimitrov Battalion and Sixth February Battalion and a Spanish battalion (Volontario 24).^[10] The two regiments next fought in the Battle of Brunete (July 1937). Of the 2,500 men of the XV who went into the battle, only 1,000 effective soldiers remained.^[11]

The Americans ... were cut to pieces. The Washingtons sustained fifty percent casualties and the Lincolns were heavily depleted as well. Of the eight hundred Americans in the Lincoln and Washington Battalions at the start of the Brunete offensive on 6 July, only five hundred effectives remained.^{[clarification needed][11]}

In November 1937 Merriman prevailed upon his wife to return to the U.S., ostensibly for the purpose of raising funds for the Brigade. But in her view, he had come to believe the war was unwinnable for the Republicans, and his real purpose was to send her to safety. He entrusted her with the diaries he had been keeping since his arrival in Spain. They last saw each other on November 17. She departed for the U.S. on December 22, with the intention of eventually returning to Spain.

Now recovered from his wounds, Merriman again led the Lincoln-Washington Battalion during the Battle of Teruel during the Aragon Offensive (March 7-April 19 1938). Under heavy attack by Nationalist tanks and aircraft, the Americans were badly mauled at the Battle of Belchite (March 10). The battalion was shattered, broken into smaller elements which were forced to retreat towards Catalonia and its boundary river, the Ebro, under threat of being surrounded.

Merriman took charge of a mixture of elements including the brigade staff of commanding officers, and remnants of the Lincoln-Washington Battalion and the XI International Brigade. On the night of April 1, they retreated to a hill just outside the town of Gandesa. On the day of April 2 they attacked the Nationalist forces in Gandesa in an attempt to break through in the direction of Corbera to Republican lines, but were repulsed and the survivors were forced to return to the hill. On the night of April 2 he led another attempt to break through. The men formed a column and began filing towards Corbera, but in the dark they lost contact and the column fragmented into smaller groups. Merriman, brigade commissar David Doran, and several other American officers from the Lincoln and Washington Battalions were killed when they inadvertently stumbled into a Nationalist encampment. One anonymous account states they were executed after being captured.^[12][13][14] His remains were never found.

For some time, Merriman's family was led to believe he was safe because of conflicting reports about his whereabouts. His wife never heard from him after March 1938. On April 13, there was news that he had "miraculously escaped death or capture", but she eventually came to believe he died in the retreat.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Merriman apparently subscribed to a communist ideology, or was on the verge of doing so, by the time he arrived in Spain (many of the international volunteers for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War were communists), though prior to January 1937 he either was uncertain of it or chose not to openly profess it, even to his wife. In his wife's memoir, she states positively he was not a communist. And according to various accounts written by those who knew him or knew of him in Spain, and to Comintern archives, he was not a communist, or in any case not a member of a communist party. When he enlisted with the XV International Brigade, he was listed as an “anti-fascist”, a label used for non-communist volunteers.

In January 1937, shortly after he enlisted, he applied to join the Communist Party of Spain. It is possible his motives for doing so were not idealogical, as membership of the party was practically required for any leadership position in the International Brigade. However, his diary entries of Feb. 17 and 18 of 1937, written on the eve of the Lincoln Battalion's first battle, read in part:

...May others live the life I have begun and may they carry it still further as I plan to do myself. Long live Communism!...Long live the Soviet Union! Men may die but let them die in a working class cause.

There is no evidence that Merriman ever acted under the direction of any foreign or communist entity.

Following Merriman's death, the XV International Brigade was reconstituted and remained in the lines for nearly eight more months. It fought in one more major engagement, the Battle of the Ebro (July 25-September 23, 1938). Most of its surviving personnel were pulled out of Spain by the end of December 1938.

His widow later remarried and had three children. She worked at Stanford University, and in 1986 published a memoir, American Commander in Spain.^[1] She died in December 1991 at the age of 82.

The 6'4" Merriman is believed to have been the inspiration for Robert Jordan in Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Merriman and Hemingway briefly met in Madrid, and Hemingway was "deeply impressed" with the young idealist.^[3]

• Merriman, Marion; Lerude, Warren (1986). American Commander in Spain: Robert Hale Merriman and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Nevada: University of Nevada Press. ISBN 0-87417-106-7.
• Eric Blaine Coleman, Some Men Put In Their Lives: Americans in the International Brigades, Spain 1936-1939, (2001)
• Antony Beevor, Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 (2006) ISBN 978-0-297-84832-5
• Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War. (Revised edition 2003) ISBN 978-0-14-101161-5

• Merriman in Spain
• The Lincoln Brigade in Spain
• New York Times review of book about Merriman
• Merriman in the Spanish Civil War (Spanish)
• The photo archives of the American Volunteers in Spain - ALBA