I agree with Bruce. I think the editors of the book assumed it was Dandridge McRae but it has to be somebody else. Maybe not even a Civil War officer, perhaps somebody from a previous conflict. DM hadn't been a colonel for two years by the time this letter was written and he was no longer in the service.

There was T.H. McCray that Bruce suggested. Was in down in that area around this time??? I know he surrendered in NE Arkansas a few months later. I found a Colonel McRae that fought in the 1814 version of the Battle of New Orleans. If this was Col. William McRee then he was already dead by this date.