page_title: Charles DeWitt Anderson
section_title: Civil War service
hierarchical_section_title: Charles DeWitt Anderson / Civil War service
caption_attribution_description: English: Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island, Alabama.
context_page_description: Charles DeWitt Anderson was an American soldier, railway builder, civil engineer, and lighthouse keeper. He served as an officer in the U.S. Army, and later as a Confederate officer during the American Civil War. Anderson was noted for his controversial surrender of Fort Gaines at the Battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864.
context_section_description: At the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, Anderson chose to follow his home state and the Confederate cause. On March 16 he was appointed a first lieutenant in the Regular Confederate Artillery. His first assignment was at Fort Morgan, guarding the entrance to Mobile Bay, Alabama. There he was given command a regular detachment, organized separately from the volunteer forces but attached to the 2nd Alabama Infantry, and was responsible for the installation's ordnance. His total force consisted of the remaining regular recruits from the Mount Vernon Arsenal in Alabama, and numbered only two officers and nine enlisted men. On November 9 Anderson entered the volunteer service for good, appointed a major in the 20th Alabama Infantry, and command of his regulars fell to 2nd Lt. Alfred M. O'Neal. 
  In late 1861 Anderson and the 20th Alabama were stationed at Knoxville, Tennessee, and on February 15, 1862, he left the unit to join the staff of Brig. Gen. Adley H. Gladden, posted at Mobile, Alabama. That April during the Battle of Shiloh, Anderson acted as his assistant adjutant general, but following Gladden's death in the battle the staff was broken up. The following month Anderson took command of the 21st Alabama Infantry, elected its colonel on May 8. The regiment became part of the defenses of Mobile, with Anderson commanding it for the remainder of 1862, all of 1863, and into 1864.
caption: Fort Gaines, Alabama, as it appeared in 2008
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