Robert Peterson was a 19-year-old African American laborer from the Stanwich section of Greenwich when he enlisted in the Union Army in December 1863.

He was mustered into Company E of the Twenty-Ninth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry (Colored) on March 8, 1864 and left New Haven March 20th for Annapolis. The regiment fought in all the significant campaigns in the Petersburg-Richmond area from August 1864 through April 1865 that helped bring the Civil War to a close.

Two companies from the 29th were the first to enter Richmond on April 3, 1865. Peterson was wounded in the back at a skirmish near Kell House in October of 1864. After recovering from his wounds he was sent to guard ammunition trains for the remainder of the war. He was mustered out of the army in October 1865.

After the Civil War he married Anjinett Falmetta, the daughter of a Greenwich stonemason, George Falmetta. Peterson died in 1885 at the age of 40 from complications of tuberculosis