Joseph T. Derry , A. M. , Author of School History of the United States; Story of the Confederate War, etc., Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 6, Georgia
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[393] his commission in the United States army and offered his services to the new Confederacy, of which his State had become a member. He was immediately appointed first lieutenant of artillery, his commission dating from March 16, 1861. In September he was promoted to the rank of major and was acting adjutant-general of troops on the Georgia coast. June 30, 1862, he was still on the Georgia coast as major of the First battalion Georgia sharpshooters. This command was brought by him and its other officers to a high state of discipline and efficiency. In February and March, 1863, he won general attention and commendation by his plucky and successful defense of Fort McAllister against the Federal monitors, in which combat it was demonstrated that Georgia gunners behind sand embankments were more than a match for the new and much vaunted revolving ironclads. Major Anderson had been promoted to the rank of colonel of the Fifth Georgia cavalry on January 20, 1863, and commanded the troops in the neighborhood of Fort McAllister. General Beauregard in his official report to the war department, commended very highly the conduct of officers and men engaged in this affair. The Fifth cavalry was transferred to the army of Tennessee before the opening of the Atlanta campaign of 1864, and assigned to the brigade of Gen. W. W. Allen, composed of the Georgia cavalry regiments known as the Third, Eighth, Tenth and Twelfth Confederate. Of this brigade, including the Fifth, Colonel Anderson was soon in command, and on July 26th he was commissioned brigadier-general. This gallant brigade and Dibrell's composed Kelly's division, one among the very best divisions of Wheeler's splendid cavalry corps, which followed the fortunes of the army of Tennessee to the surrender near Durham's Station in North Carolina, April 26, 1865. At the close of the war General Anderson returned to Savannah, and was chief of police of that city from 1867 to his death, February 8, 1888. He was a member of the board of visitors to the