Robert Bruce Ricketts (April 29, 1839 – November 13, 1918) distinguished himself as an artillery officer in the American Civil War.

Bruce Ricketts joined the service on July 8, as a private of that year, and he was commissioned as first lieutenant in that battery about a month later.

In that context it was involved, under Ricketts' leadership, in a reconnaissance expedition to Rappahannock Station, Virginia, that left on April 7, of that year.

Battery F was seriously engaged in the Battle of Cedar Mountain on August 8, helping McDowell cover the retreat of the corps of Major General Nathaniel Banks.

The battery helped defend Henry House Hill at Second Bull Run, and it was present at the Battle of Chantilly though not engaged.

Ricketts was engaged with his guns at the Battle of Fredericksburg, serving with second division I Corps under Major General John F. Reynolds.

Ricketts' battery arrived in Gettysburg on the Taneytown Road on the morning of July 2, 1863, and replaced Capt.

Some Confederates reached the top of the hill, and one group attacked the left of Ricketts' battery, trying to spike the guns.

Eventually Union reinforcements from the II Corps brigade of Col. Samuel S. Carroll drove the Confederates down hill.

[5] After Gettysburg, Ricketts' battery F was transferred to the artillery brigade of II Corps in time for the Bristoe Campaign.

[6] At the Battle of Bristoe Station later that day, Ricketts' battery F came up at a gallop and unlimbered behind BG Alexander S. Webb's second division II Corps.

During the Battle of the Wilderness, a section of Ricketts' battery advanced on the Plank Road with Major General Winfield Scott Hancock's attack on the Confederate lines on May 5, 1864, at about 3:30 PM.

The section accompanied BG George Getty's division of VI Corps, serving with Hancock at that time.

When Major James H. Cooper reached the expiration of his term of service on August 8, 1864, Ricketts was named his successor.

Whenever the chief of artillery, Colonel John C. Tidball, was absent, Ricketts took charge of the guns of IX Corps in his place.

[18] The report that a Confederate veteran looked at Ricketts, a slight man, and commented, "And did this little cuss command Battery Hell!," may be apocryphal.

[19] After the war, Ricketts, with his father and an uncle, began buying timber land in Columbia, Luzerne and Sullivan counties.

He used his own lumber to build North Mountain House at Ganoga Lake in the area where he had his timber lands.

Ricketts belonged to the Grand Army of the Republic and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.