Pierce B. Anderson

Pierce Butler Anderson ( – December 13, 1861) was a lawyer, state legislator, math professor, land speculator, and a West Point-educated soldier. He served as an infantry officer in U.S. Army during the Mexican–American War. He was killed in action during the first year of the American Civil War at the Battle of Camp Allegheny while serving as an artillery officer in the Confederate States Army.

Biography Anderson was born at Soldier's Rest in what was then Jefferson County and later Hamblen County in East Tennessee. He was the son of Onley Patience Outlaw Anderson and Joseph Anderson, a federal judge, U.S. Senator, and Comptroller of the U.S. Treasury. His classmates included one of the Confederate generals Johnston, In his third year, he received "a bayonet wound through his right wrist, which permanently disabled him," after which, he "returned to private life in his native East Tennessee hills." and 1845. He was said to have "resided for many years in the 'Bend of Chucky' in East Tennessee."

He served as a captain of infantry in the Mexican-American War from 1847 to 1848. Col. P. B. Anderson is remembered for his actions at the Battle of Chapultepec when "a Mexican shell fell in the centre of Capt. Anderson's company" which instantly killed 16 or 17 soldiers. and saw several of his children educated at Franklin. What was called the McRee House, constructed of brick and said to be the second-oldest building in Tullahoma, was built for Anderson in 1854 and stood until it was destroyed in a fire in 1901.

American Civil War During the American Civil War P. B. Anderson volunteered and was named an officer in the Confederate States Army. He initially joined Turney's First Infantry (not to be confused with the 1st Tennessee Infantry Regiment) formed by Peter Turney, son of the politician he had supported during his years as a state legislator. According to the report of Col. Edward Johnson of the 12th Georgia, "About half an hour after the attack was made on the right this column came up on the left to our trenches. They were evidently surprised to find us intrenched. Here the brave Anderson, by a fatal mistake, lost his life. As the enemy advanced he rode to the trenches and invited them in, thinking they were our returning pickets, at the same time telling our men not to fire. He was instantly shot down by the advancing body of the enemy's force, and Our men then opened a galling fire; upon them, and they fell back into the fallen timber." As retold by a modern historian, "...the sound of gunfire erupted south of the turnpike on the Confederate left. Moody's Hoosiers and western Virginians...arrived after their grueling march and an unscheduled stop at a cider mill. They managed to kill Captain Pierce B. Anderson, one of Johnson's battery commanders, who mistook the Federals for Confederate pickets and, standing on the parapet of the works..." was shot down. According to the centennial history of Coffee County, Tennessee, Anderson's death disrupted a plan to commission him a brigadier general in the Confederate Army.

Anderson was wearing his Mexican War sword when he was killed. His grave marker erroneously states that he was killed at the Battle of Greenbrier River on October 3, 1861, rather than at Alleghany Mountain in December.

In 1889 a "Confederate bivouac" was named for him in Tullahoma.

Personal life

Anderson was married to Ann M. Luke, said to be a granddaughter of American Revolutionary War general Andrew Lewis, in Mason County, Kentucky in November 1828. Another son, George W. Anderson, was Union-aligned and became a U.S. Congressman from Missouri after the war.