CWRT Feb 2018 Lawrence Lee Hewitt: “Confederate General Richard Heron Anderson

SHOW LESSIf asked to name the six lieutenant generals who served as infantry corps commanders under Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia, Jackson, Longstreet, A. P. Hill, Ewell, and Early, would probably be followed by John Brown Gordon. Yet, the sixth was Richard Heron Anderso--in terms of seniority, if not ability. Despite a mediocre performance as division commander at Gettysburg, Lee called upon Anderson to take charge of the 1st Corps when Longstreet was wounded in the Wilderness. Following the Overland Campaign he reinforced Early in the Shenandoah Valley. When Longstreet returned to duty, Lee gave Anderson the 4th Corps, Beauregard’s old command. He managed to escape capture at Little Sailor’s Creek only to be relieved two days later. It was a precursor to his postwar career. Lawrence Lee Hewitt, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, received his B.A. (1974) from the University of Kentucky and his M.A. (1977) Ph.D. (1984) from Louisiana State University. He was the manager of the Port Hudson (1978-1982) and Camp Moore (1982-1986) Historic Sites in Louisiana and taught at Southeastern Louisiana University (1985-1996). He was a tenured full professor when he resigned to marry a native of Chicago, where he currently resides. The 2013 recipient of the Nevins-Freeman Award, he is a past president of the Baton Rouge Civil War Round Table. His publications include Port Hudson, C o n f e d e r a t e Bastion on the Mississippi (1987), two volumes of Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi (2013, 2015), and, To Succeed or Perish: The Diaries of Sergeant Edmund Trent Eggleston, 1st Mississippi Light Artillery Regiment, CSA (2015), which won the 2016 General Basil W. Duke Literary Award. A third volume of Confederate Generals in the TransMississippi will be out in 2018. He recently finished a history of Port Hudson Civil War photographs and is writing biographies of Richard Heron Anderson and David Glasgow Farragut.