Anderson, John W.

According to his own short biographical account in the diary (22 Feb. 1861), John W. Anderson was born 1 April 1834, one of the eight children born to F. D. Anderson and Mary Silver Anderson of Hanford County, Md . John W. Anderson received his M.D. from the University of Maryland and subsequently accepted the offer of help to establish a medical practice from his uncle Joseph Silver, arriving in Alabama Sept. 1854.

The location chosen by his benefactor at Mt. Pleasant, Ala. near the uncle's plantation, proved to be distressingly without need of a full-time physician. In addition, Anderson 's romantic attachment to Rosalie Josephine Witter, then just fourteen years old, only intensified Anderson 's desire to break with his uncle, who disapproved of the Witter family entirely.

By Spring 1856, Anderson moved with his books and pride to Sparta, Ala. to establish himself in a successful medical practice, becoming particularly respected for his surgical operations. Thus prepared to support a family of his own, the young physician promptly returned to Mt. Pleasant in a buggy, married his sweetheart, by then fifteen years old, and felt himself settled.

By the time of the diary four children had been born to the Anderson 's, with only two surviving infancy, Francis Eugene Anderson (Frank) and Gertrude Corinne Anderson (Gertie), who figure prominently in Anderson 's narrative.

On 4 Dec. 1856, Rosalie 's brother, Robert B. Witter, Jr. founded a small weekly newspaper in Sparta, Ala., called The Spartan . Anderson soon accepted Witter's offer of a partnership in the paper. As a result of Robert Witter's ardor, and as it was the only newspaper in the county at the time, The Spartan had attained a wide circulation, as well as, eventually, the status of a semi-weekly. This progress slowly lured Anderson into becoming a fully involved working partner, completely abandoning his increasingly neglected medical practice in 1857.

For a time Anderson took over The Spartan press office entirely in 1861, when Witter was hospitalized in Richmond, Va. after being wounded in an afray in New York . Anderson 's wife Rosalie also joined him in the presswork, acting as a typesetter. Anderson 's job, therefore, involved reporting and editing, as well as typesetting. Adventurous, industrious, keenly observant, articulate and doubtlessly charming, Anderson seems to have found his true calling in journalism.

Having a growing family, a thriving business and a pleasant new home on seven acres of land, Anderson was not eager to see the idyllic life broken by war. Foreseeing the need of other financial support, and no doubt itching to be where events were exciting, Anderson, at the suggestion of support from James A. Stallworth, a former member of Congress for the district, travelled to Montgomery, Ala . in Feb. 1861, to seek an office with the newly established (4 Feb. 1861) Confederate States of American Provisional Government .

Due so some assiduous lobbying, Anderson was soon appointed (26 Feb. 1861) Corresponding Clerk in the office of C. G. Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederacy . Contemplating suspended publication of The Spartan for at least a month, Anderson mused that inevitably the exigencies of war would require the complete suspension of such a small business enterprise anyway, so it was just as well he had acquired other employment.

Despite taking a civil service job in the new Confederate government, however, Anderson did not completely leave behind his calling as a journalist. As he states in his diary, Anderson determined to put his reporting to the test during the war, to record not only the major events, but those unconsidered 'trifles lighter than air' that help to complete the general outline of a more ambitious narrative.

Anderson had previously entered the war in 1861 by enlisting in a company of infantry from his home in Sparta, Ala., answering the call to defend Fort Pickens . Travelling by train to Pensacola, the company was ordered to join the 1st Alabama Regiment under Col. Lomax at Fort Pickens . Eventually, on the decision of General Chase, no Confederate attack was mounted, and the company was sent back in consternation to Alabmaa .

Anderson later served (16 Aug. 1862) as Recording Clerk for the Confederate Senate . Robert Witter also obtained a positon in Jan. 1862 with the Confederate government . Both Anderson and Witter held the military rank of private in Company F of the Virginia 3rd Regiment, a sort of Headquarters Company or Home Guard, and lived with their families in Richmond, Va. during the war.

Anderson's diary is ample evidence of his journalistic tenacity, and his avowed devotion to recording the personal, and often very domestic details of professional, family, and military life during the war, particularly while under siege in the Confederate capital city, and, after defeat, facing the Union Government's recuperation plan called Reconstruction .

From the guide to the Inventory of the John W. Anderson Diary Ragan MSS 00124., 1861-1866 (bulk: 1867), (Cushing Memorial Library, )