Samuel Read Anderson

Samuel R. Anderson was born in Bedford County, Virginia to Robert Anderson, formerly an officer in the American Revolution. His family moved westward, first to the Kentucky frontier and then to Tennessee where he was educated and raised. By the mid-1840s he had married and become a successful businessman and one of the leading citizens of Davidson County, Tennessee.

During the Mexican War, he helped recruit volunteers from the state to serve in the Federal army. He received a commission as the Lieutenant Colonel of the 1st Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment and served with that unit in Mexico.

After the war, he returned to Tennessee and worked for the Bank of Tennessee. In 1853 received a political patronage position as the postmaster of Nashville. He served in that role until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he resigned in May 1861 to join the state's pro-Confederate forces.[2]

On May 9, 1861, Anderson, because of his previous military experience and political connections, received a commission from Tennessee's governor Isham G. Harris as a major general in the state's provisional forces. Within a few weeks, those units were formally transferred to the Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS) and Anderson became a Confederate brigadier general on July 9.

He commanded a brigade of the 1st, 7th, and 14th Tennessee infantry and one company of Tennessee cavalry. His troops were transported to western Virginia where he played a role in the Cheat Mountain campaign while serving under Robert E. Lee. He then was assigned to the command of William W. Loring and spent the winter of 1861-62 serving in the mountains of western Virginia before being transferred with his brigade to help in the defenses of Yorktown, Virginia. However, his health has been impaired by the harsh service and he resigned on May 10, 1862, and returned home.[2]

On November 7, 1864, Anderson returned to the rank of brigadier general when at the age of sixty he accepted an appointment from the Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and supervised the Confederate Bureau of Conscription for Tennessee. However, with much of Tennessee in Federal hands, Anderson was forced to establish his headquarters in Selma, Alabama, for the rest of the war.[2]

After the Civil War ended in 1865, Anderson was paroled and he returned to Tennessee. He became a prominent businessman in Nashville and was active in veterans affairs.

Samuel R. Anderson died in Nashville on January 2, 1883, and is buried in the Nashville City Cemetery.[1]

• List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)

• Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1.
• Faust, Patricia L. (ed.), Historical Times Illustrated History of the Civil War, Harper Perennial Publishers, 1991, ISBN 0-06-271535-6.
• Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. ISBN 978-0-8160-1055-4.
• Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. ISBN 978-0-8071-0823-9.
• Welsh, Jack D., Medical Histories of Confederate Generals, Kent State University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-87338-853-5.

• Samuel Read Anderson at Find a Grave