Talk:Joseph R. Anderson

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Joseph Reid Anderson (February 16, 1813-September 7, 1892) was born in Botetourt County, Virginia. Of Irish descent, he became a civil engineer, industrialist, and soldier.

Anderson whbhftdtwe35aestrdtfyguhiugytrewq34esrdtyvubhjnklmknjibhuvgyfctdxrezwaesxdrctfgvbhjn kmlmkjnhbgvyftcrdes4w3erdctfvghbj km,e United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He graduated 4th in his class in 1836. In recognition of his engineering abilities, Anderson was assigned as an assistant engineer in the Engineer Bureau in Washington before being officially transferred to the Corps of Engineers on July 1, 1837 as a brevet second lieutenant. His primary duty with the Corps of Engineers was in the construction of Fort Pulaski to guard the Port of Savannah, Georgia.

Anderson married Sara Eliza Archer, daughter of the post surgeon at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Seeking better prospects than army life promised, in 1837, he resigned to work as a civil engineer with Virginia State Engineer Claudius Crozet, who had earlier been a professor of engineering at West Point. Under the Virginia Board of Public Works, Anderson became Assistant State Engineer and served was chief engineer of the Valley Turnpike Company between Staunton and Winchester, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley from 1838 until 1841.

In 1841, Anderson joined the Tredegar Iron Company in Richmond, Virginia, eventually becoming its owner in 1848. By 1860, he was a leading industrialist in the South and his foundry on the James River was one of the largest in the United States, producing steam locomotives, boilers, cables, naval hardware, and cannon.

When the American Civil War came, the Tredegar Iron Company emerged as the industrial heart of the Confederate States of America. Using slave and free labor, Anderson supervised ordnance and munitions production through most of the war.

Anderson was a supporter of southern secession and was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army on September 3, 1861. Initially assigned to command the Confederate forces at Wilmington, North Carolina, in April, 1862, he was reassigned to the area around Fredericksburg, Virginia opposite Union General Irwin McDowell.

With the mounting threat to Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign, Anderson was placed in command of the 3rd Brigade in A.P. Hill's newly formed light infantry division. During the Seven Days Battles, and he saw action at the Battle of Mechanicsville, Battle of Gaines Mill, and was wounded at the Battle of Glendale on June 30, 1862.

General Anderson resigned his army commission on July 19, 1862, and served the Confederate war effort in the Ordnance Department until the Evacuation of Richmond on the night of April 2-3, 1865. As the retreating Confederate troops burned many of the munitions dumps and industrial warehouses that would have been valuable to the North, Anderson reportedly paid over fifty armed guards to protect the Tredegar facility from arsonists. As a result, the Tredegar Iron Works is one of few civil-war era buildings that survived the burning of Richmond. During the occupation, the U.S. government confiscated the Tredegar Iron Company's property, but Anderson regained control in 1867 and remained a prominent Virginia businessman as its president. His son, Archer Anderson, became involved in the business, and became president of the Tredegar Iron Works after his father's death.

After his wife Sara died in 1881, Anderson remarried. His second wife was Mary Evans Pegram, making him a brother-in-law to Confederate General John Pegram and Colonel William Ransom Johnson Pegram, both of whom had been killed during the war.

Joseph Reid Anderson died on September 7, 1892 while on a vacation at Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire. It was widely reported that 30,000 citizens came to his funeral when he was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

Today, Anderson's former Tredegar Iron Works facility overlooking the James River near downtown Richmond is the site of the main Visitor's Center of the Richmond National Battlefield Park.

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008
Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 13:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)