Andrew Rodgers

Andrew Fuller Rodgers (13 October 1827 – 20 January 1922) was a colonel in the American Civil War and member of the Illinois House of Representatives.

Early life and career Rodgers was born on 13 October 1827 in Howard County, Missouri, to Ebenezer Rodgers and Purinelia Jackson Rodgers. Ebenezer was a native of Wales and emigrated to America in 1818. He settled in the Boonslick region of Missouri and worked as a teacher. In 1833 he moved to Upper Alton, Illinois, where he served as a preacher and helped get Shurtleff College off the ground and running. Purinelia was the daughter of Capt. John Jackson, a veteran of the War of 1812.

Andrew Rodgers was educated at Shurtleff College. In 1844, at the age of seventeen, he clerked at a hardware store and pursued a business life until the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846.

In 1846, Rodgers volunteered to fight in the Mexican–American War and joined Company E of the Second Illinois Regiment under the leadership of Col. William Henry Bissell. Their unit saw substantial action at the Battle of Buena Vista.

Afterward Rodgers set out to California in 1849 along with thousands of others in the California Gold Rush. In 1851 he was appointed deputy sheriff of Sacramento by Benjamin McCulloch and then later served a second term while still mining. At the death of his father in 1853, Rodgers returned home to Illinois and farmed.