James Patton Anderson
James Patton Anderson was born on February 16, 1822, near Winchester, Tennessee, to William P. Anderson and Margaret Adair. The family moved to Kentucky around 1831 and then to Mississippi around 1838. He attended medical school at Jefferson College in Pennsylvania in the early 1840s, but financial difficulties forced him to withdraw shortly before graduation.
Anderson was admitted to the bar in 1843, and he established his practice in Hernando, Mississippi. He became a captain in the Mississippi militia, and he served as a lieutenant colonel in the Mexican-American War. He supported the Democratic Party, and local residents elected him to the state legislature in 1850. He married Henrietta Adair around 1853, and they had at least two children: William, born around 1857; and Theophilus, born around 1859.
President Franklin Pierce appointed him U.S. Marshal for the Washington Territory in the early 1850s, and he represented the territory in Congress from 1855 until 1857. He moved to Florida in the late 1850s and served as a delegate to the state’s secession convention during the winter of 1860-61.
He sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, and he received a commission as colonel of the 1st Florida Infantry. He was promoted to brigadier general in February 1862, and he took part in the Battle of Shiloh, the Battle of Perryville, the Battle of Stones River, the Battle of Chickamauga, and the Chattanooga campaign.
He was promoted to major general in February 1864, and he fought in the Atlanta campaign. He was wounded in the jaw during the Battle of Jonesboro on August 31, 1864. Confederate officials declared him unfit for duty, and he returned home to recover. He resumed his command in the spring of 1865, and he surrendered as part of General Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee on April 26, 1865.
Anderson settled in Memphis, Tennessee, after the war, and he worked as an insurance agent and newspaper editor. He died in Memphis on September 20, 1872.
Image: James Patton Anderson (courtesy Wikicommons)
DATABASE CONTENT
| (3964) | Anderson, James Patton | 1822-02-16 | 1872-09-20 |
- Conflict Side: Confederacy
- Role: Soldier
- Rank in: Colonel
- Rank out: Major General
- Rank highest: Major General
- Gender: Male
- Race: White
Documents - Records: 4
Places - Records: 2
Regiments - Records: 2
Groups - Records: 1
- (1) [politician] ~ Democratic Party
SOURCES
1850, 1860, and 1870 United States Federal Censuses, available from Ancestry.com; “James Patton Alexander” Wikipedia profile, available from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Patton_Anderson
