We saw it stated the other day, in the Fredericksburg Recorder, that this officer was a native of
Buckingham county, in this State.
This is a mistake.
Our friend of the
Recorder has confounded him with another
Major Anderson, who is a native of
Buckingham, and who is well known in this city.
The latter served with great gallantry in the
Mexican war, and was engaged, we believe, in all the battles from
Vera Cruz to the city of
Mexico.
He is a relation of the other, and is, like him, a graduate of
West Point.
Major Anderson, of
Fort Sumter, is a native of
Kentucky.
He is the son of
Captain Richard Clough Anderson, of the revolutionary army, who was born in
Hanover county, and lived there until about the year 1790, when he removed to
Kentucky.
Richard Clough Anderson joined
Washington's army at the very commencement of that great officer's career as commander-in-Chief.
He was at the battle of
Brooklyn, in the retreat through the Jerseys, and commanded the advanced company which surprised the Hessians on the morning of the
battle of Trenton.
He fought, likewise, in the battles of
Princeton,
Brandywine,
Germantown,
Monmouth, and assisted in the storming of
Stony Point.
Sent, with the
Virginia troops, under the command of
General Charles Scott, to
Charleston, he was captured with the rest of
Lincoln's army, at that place, but was exchanged early enough to take part in the siege of
York.
He was, we have understood, wounded more than once during his long and arduous service, and by some casualty of war, either by a shot, or by leaping from a parapet, was lamed for life.
The meeting between him and
LaFayette in 1824, at
Louisville, was described in the papers of the day as highly interesting.
There was no braver officer in the
American army, and no officer led a braver body of men. They were all, we have heard, from old
Hanover, which has done so much to make herself renowned in our brief history.
The eldest son of
Captain Anderson,
Richard Clough Anderson, Jr., was sent Minister to one of the
South American Republics, by
Mr. Monroe, about 1823, and died there.
He was quite a young man, and very promising.
This seems to have been a warlike family.--
Richard Clough Anderson had a younger brother, who commanded a company of Hanover troops throughout
Greene's campaigns.
He was in the battles of
Guilford,
Camden and
Eutaw, and at the Siege of Ninety-Six.
He went also to
Georgia, with
Wayne, in his expedition against the Indians, immediately after the close of the
Carolina campaign.
There was no braver officer in the whole army.
He did not follow his brother to
Kentucky, but married, lived and died in his native
county of Hanover.
He left one son — the venerable
Col. Benjamin Anderson, of
Goochland, who is still alive, and who is, therefore, the first cousin of the
Fort Sumter man.
