General Dick Anderson

Anderson is born in 1821 on a South Carolina Plantation and graduates from West point in 1842. He is brevetted for gallantry during the Mexican War and goes on to earn his “Fighting Dick” nickname in the Confederate Army. He is promoted to Major General after the Battle of Seven Pines and is wounded at Antietam while in command of the Bloody Lane redoubt. He leads the rout on Hooker at Chancellorsville and serves in III Corps under A.P. Hill at Gettysburg.  On Day 2, his regiment under Wright reaches Cemetery Ridge before being forced back. After Longstreet’s wound at the Wilderness, Anderson leads I Corps at Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, ending with a temporary promotion to Lt. General in May 1864. Lee names him to head the new IV Corps in October and it serves as his rear guard at Sayler’s Creek and Appomattox. After an 1865 pardon, Anderson tries and fails as a cotton planter, then spends a decade as an agent on the South Carolina Railroad before dying at 57 in 1879.