Duncan Kirkland McRae (August 16, 1820 – February 12, 1888) was an American politician from North Carolina.

He was an officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, the wounds received in it complicating his later life.

Back in North Carolina he studied law under Judge Robert Strange, was admitted to the bar in 1841 and briefly practiced in Oxford before becoming a courier to Mexico for the State Department.

[2] In 1842 young McRae was elected into the North Carolina House of Commons as Democratic representative for his native Cumberland County; serving a single term until 1843.

He commanded his regiment, now in the brigade of Jubal Early, during the Peninsula Campaign and fought in the Battle of Williamsburg.

He took over the brigade again after the death of Samuel Garland Jr. at South Mountain,[6] leading it into the maelstrom of the Battle of Antietam where it nearly perished.

[7] When the recuperating colonel was passed over for promotion, the later going to Alfred Iverson Jr., he resigned his commission; effective on November 13, 1862.

[8] At Antietam, he admitted that, "the unaccountable panic occurred, when I was left along on the field, with only Captain Withers of Caswell and perhaps one other officer, and I had just gotten off, when I encountered ... General Lee, and it was while, with him I was trying to get some men out of the Hay Stacks that a piece of shell struck me in the forehead.

"[9] In 1863 the new Governor of North Carolina, Zebulon B. Vance, appointed McRae a special envoy and purchase agent; sending him to southern Europe to find a market for cotton and to procure supplies.

[9]McRae's frail health and reappearing complications from his war wounds made him relocate - first to Chicago, then to New York City.