Robert Randolph Carter (September 15, 1825 – March 8, 1888) was an American naval officer that would later come to be known for a journal he kept while unsuccessfully searching for the Franklin expedition.

This journal was later posthumously published by the Naval Institute Press as Searching for the Franklin Expedition: The Arctic Journal of Robert Randolph Carter in May 1998 and won the 1998 John Lyman Book Award for Primary Source Materials, Reference Works, and Guide Books.

[3] He attended school in Alexandria, Virginia, and in 1842 joined the United States Navy, during which time he took part in the Mexican–American War.

Carter went on to attend the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1849 as a passed midshipman.

[4] Carter died on March 8, 1888, as a result of injuries sustained from a fall from a granary loft and was buried at Shirley Plantation.