James Patton Anderson

Background

James Patton Anderson was born on February 12, 1822 in Franklin County, Tennessee, United States. He was the son of William Anderson и Margaret Lapsley Adair.

Education

Anderson, reared by a grandfather (his father had died in 1831), attended country schools and was a student at Jefferson College (now Washington & Jefferson College) in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, from 1836 to 1840. He then studied law at Montrose Law School in Frankfort, Kentucky, and was admitted to the bar in 1843.

Career

From 1843 to 1846, Anderson was sheriff of DeSoto County, Mississippi, pausing during the summers of 1844 and 1845 to study law at Montrose Law School. In 1847, he became a law partner of R. B. Mayes, and in the same year, he raised a company for the Mexican War, where he served as a colonel at Tampico. A Democrat, he was elected to the Mississippi House in 1850.

He opposed the Compromise of 1850 and lost his bid for reelection the following year. In 1853, he was the United States marshal of the Washington Territory, where he compiled the territorial census. From 1855 to 1857, he served as a Democrat in the U.S. House from the Washington Territory.

He declined an offer to become governor of the territory in 1857 because he thought that secession was imminent. Instead, he moved to Florida to supervise his aunt’s plantation, "Casablanca," in Monticello, Jefferson County. A secessionist delegate to the Florida convention, he also served on the Military Affairs and Public Lands Committees in the provisional Confederate Congress before he resigned to enter the Confederate Army.

Anderson enlisted in the Jefferson County Volunteers of the 1st Florida Regiment in the summer of 1861 and served under Braxton Bragg at Pensacola. Promoted to brigadier general on February 10, 1862, he fought at Shiloh, Corinth, and Murfreesboro and commanded a division at Perryville, Kentucky, in 1862. In 1863, he distinguished himself at Chickamauga and served as a division commander at Chattanooga.

He was promoted to major general on February 17, 1864. During the last part of the Atlanta Campaign, he commanded the District of Florida and saw some action around Jacksonville. After succeeding John B. Hood as commander of the Army of Tennessee, he fought battles at Ezra Church and at Jonesboro, Georgia, where he was wounded and was forced to give up active service in August 1864.

During the final days of the war, he rejoined his army in North Carolina despite his surgeon's warning. He opposed the end of the war and never sought parole. After the war, he sold life insurance, edited an agricultural magazine, and was a tax collector in Memphis, Tennessee.

Achievements

• Anderson was a conspicuous person during the Mexican-American War and American Civil War, serving through eight battles. At the Battle of Stone's River, Anderson led Colonel Edward Walthall's brigade in a successful charge on Federal artillery. During the fighting around Chickamauga and Chattanooga, he held divisional command and was officially promoted to major general.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Speech Of The Hon. J. Patton Anderson, On The Indian War In Washington And Oregon, August 6, 1856 1856

Politics

A Democrat who later blamed the disruption of the Union on the Republicans, he was elected to the Mississippi House in 1850, where he was an ally of Jefferson Davis.

Personality

Anderson's career indicates a versatile and adventurous character. In battle he exposed himself recklessly and was in the thick of the fight; for this reason, men followed him willingly, even when he was only in temporary command, as was frequently the case. That he was at times a strict disciplinarian is indicated by his prompt execution of a deserter. Gen. Bragg, who was noted for making enemies rather than friends, manifested his esteem for him in many ways.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Brigadier General Patton Anderson was among the foremost where the fighting was hardest, and never failed to overcome whatever resistance was opposed to him. With a brigade composed almost entirely of raw troops, his personal gallantry and soldierly bearing supplied the place of instruction and discipline." - Braxton Bragg
  
  "Brigadier General Patton Patton Anderson for the coolness, judgment, and courage with which he interposed his brigade between our retreating forces and the enemy, largely superior to him, and saved our artillery, is justly entitled to special mention." - Braxton Bragg

Connections

In 1853 Anderson married Henrietta Buford Adair. They had no children

Father:

William Anderson

Mother:

Margaret Lapsley Adair Anderson

1794-1875

Brother:

Thomas Scott Anderson

1827-1868

Wife:

Henrietta Buford Adair Anderson

1834-1917

References

• Civil War High Commands
  2002
• Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, Volume 1: Classic Essays on America's Civil War
  2010
• Civil War A to Z: The Complete Handbook of America's Bloodiest Conflict
  2002
• J. Patton Anderson, Confederate General: A Biography
  2004
• Who Was Who in the Civil War
  1988
• Generals in Gray Lives of the Confederate Commander
  1959