CHAS. J. ANDERSON.
The subject of this sketch was born in Richmond, on August 12, 1848.
His father, son of John and Elenor Anderson, was born in Baltimore,
in 1823, and has lived in Richmond since his fifteenth year. His mother
was born in Baltimore, daughter of John and Eleanor Horne, granddaughter
of Lydia Jordan Jefferies and Col. Joseph Jefferies, of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, who served through the war for American Independence:
great granddaughter of Richard Jefferies, who was one of three
brothers who left England to settle in the New World in the latter part
of the 17th century, and settled in Pennsylvania, the other two coming
to live in Virginia.
Charles J. Anderson, entered the Virginia Military Institute in March,
1864; served with the battalion of cadets in May, under Gen. John C.
Breckenridge, in the battle of New Market, and with the corps of cadets
and local defence troops till the evacuation of Richmond. He returned
to the Institute in 1866, graduating in 1869; since 1870 has been in
business in Richmond; in 1873 was a State commissioner to the Universal
Exposition in Vienna.
In 1871 he raised a company for the First Regiment, Virginia Volunteers,
and has served the regiment as an officer in all grades, from first
lieutenant to colonel, resigning the latter to take command of the First
Brigade, to which he was elected to succeed General Fitzhugh Lee.
General Anderson is a member of various Masonic bodies, among
others being a Knight Templar and a member of the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite.
