Richard Henry Battle was born 1835 in Louisburg, Franklin County, NC the 5th of 10 known surviving children (8 boys/2 girls) children born to Hon. William Horn Battle & Lucy Martin Plummer.

His father was Judge of the Superior and then Supreme Court for almost 20 years. He was the paternal grandson of Col. Joel Battle & Mary Palmer Johnston; and gr-grandson of William Battle & Charity Horn, all of Edgecombe County. He is a direct descendant of this family's patriarch, J. John Battle (1634-1691) who immigrated from England to the Virginia Colonies in 1654 with his family and a number of relatives and neighbors settling on the west Fork of the Nansemond River in a district since known as Nansemond County, Virginia. On his mother's side, he was the maternal grandson of Kemp Plummer of Gloucester Co, VA who came to Warren County, NC and married Susan Martin.

In 1839, his father moved the family to Raleigh and by the time he was 8 (1843) they moved to Chapel Hill. Richard graduated UNC where he studied law with his father, and later began his practice in Wadesboro, Anson County. It was in Wadesboro he met and married Annie Ruffin Ashe on November 20, 1860, daughter of Judge Thomas Samuel Ashe and Caroline Attilia Burgwyn, and granddaughter of George W. B. Burgwyn & Maria Nash of "The Hermitage" in Wilmington, NC.

When Civil War came in 1861, 26-year old Richard, along with 3 of his brothers, enlisted in the Confederate States Army, where he was Quartermaster of his regiment, with the rank of Captain. Two of his brothers (Junius and Wesley) would later be killed in service. Richard resigned in September 1862 to become a private secretary to Governor-elect Zebulon Vance.

After the war he and Annie returned to Raleigh where he resumed his law practice and was active in political and civic life, including service in the state legislature in 1911, and on the Board of Trustees of UNC from 1879 to 1912. In 1895 the University conferred on him an LLD.

Richard and Annie were parents to 10 known children: Lucy Plummer Battle (1861-1905), Samuel Ashe Battle (1863-1865), Lewis Junius Battle (1865), Caroline Burgwyn Battle (1867-1880), Richard Henry Battle, Jr. (1869-1880), Annie Ashe Battle (1871-1873), Edmund Strudwick Ashe Battle (c. 1873), Charles Phillip Battle (1875-1877), Rosa A. Battle (1879), and William Kemp Battle (1880-1905).

The couple lost 3 of their children before 1877 (Samuel, Annie, and Charles), then they lost Richard Jr. in 1880.

Richard was widowed in 1883 when his wife of 23 years passed at age 43. In 1905, he would bury two more of his children when both Willie and Lucy died that year. Richard would outlive his wife by 29 years, passing in 1912 at age 76.