Robert Hale Merriman

His widow later remarried and had three children. She worked at Stanford University and in 1986 published her memoir, American Commander in Spain.

Merriman led the Lincoln-Washington Battalion again during the Battle of Teruel during the Aragon Offensive in March 1938. Under heavy attack by Nationalist tanks and aircraft, the Americans had been badly mauled at the Battle of Belchite. The battalion was forced to retreat towards Catalonia and its boundary river, the Ebro, because it was the only direction available.

For some time, Merriman's family was led to believe he was safe because of conflicting reports about his whereabouts. His wife had already returned to the United States in January 1938. She had originally planned to return to Spain, but never heard from him after March. On April 13, there was news that he had "miraculously escaped death or capture". She eventually came to believe he died in the retreat.

In 1932, he wed Frances Marion Stone, one year his junior. That same year he returned to California as a doctoral student in economics at the University of California, Berkeley and worked as a teaching assistant. Fascinated by Marxism-Leninism and the emerging economics in the Soviet Union, Merriman earned a scholarship to study for one year in Moscow along with his wife. There he became interested in the anti-fascist movement and left before his year was up to move to Spain while his wife stayed in Moscow, where she was working. Like most Americans involved with the Spanish cause, the Merrimans were communists. According to his wife, Merriman was convinced that defeating the fascists in Spain and then Germany would prevent a second World War.

Merriman was born in Eureka, California, the son of a lumberjack. He grew up in Santa Cruz, and graduated from Santa Cruz High School in 1925. He worked various odd jobs in order to make his way through the University of Nevada. To earn some extra money at school, he joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) where he received basic training with arms.

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.