Samuel Read Anderson Samuel Read Anderson ( February 17 , 1804 – January 2 , 1883 ) was an American businessman and military officer in two wars . He was the Postmaster of Nashville , Tennessee , from 1853 until 1861 and then was a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War . He commanded a mixed brigade of infantry and cavalry in the Eastern Theater in Virginia until the spring of 1862 when he was forced to resign because of ill health . Anderson later supervised the Confederate military draft in Tennessee until the end of the war . Early life and career . Samuel R . Anderson was born in Bedford County , Virginia to Robert Anderson , formerly an officer in the American Revolution . His family moved westward , first to the Kentucky frontier and then to Tennessee where he was educated and raised . By the mid - 1840s he had married and become a successful businessman and one of the leading citizens of Davidson County , Tennessee . During the Mexican War , he helped recruit volunteers from the state to serve in the Federal army . He received a commission as the lieutenant colonel of the 1st Tennessee Volunteer Infantry regiment and served with that unit in Mexico . After the war , he returned to Tennessee and worked for the Bank of Tennessee . In 1853 received a political patronage position as the postmaster of Nashville . He served in that role until the outbreak of the Civil War , when he resigned in May 1861 to join the state ' s pro - Confederate forces . Civil War service . On May 9 , 1861 , Anderson , because of his previous military experience and political connections , received a commission from Tennessee ' s governor Isham G . Harris as a major general in the state ' s provisional forces . Within a few weeks , those units were formally transferred to the Provisional Army of the Confederate States ( PACS ) and Anderson became a Confederate brigadier general on July 9 . He commanded a brigade of the 1st , 7th , and 14th Tennessee infantry and one company of Tennessee cavalry . His troops were transported to western Virginia where he played a role in the Cheat Mountain campaign while serving under Robert E . Lee . He then was assigned to the command of William W . Loring and spent the winter of 1861 - 62 serving in the mountains of western Virginia before being transferred with his brigade to help in the defenses of Yorktown , Virginia . However , his health has been impaired by the harsh service and he resigned on May 10 , 1862 and returned home . On November 7 , 1864 , Anderson returned to the ranks of Confederate brigadier generals when at the age of sixty he accepted an appointment from the Confederacy ' s president , Jefferson Davis and ordered to supervise the Confederate Bureau of Conscription for Tennessee . However , with much of Tennessee in Federal hands , Anderson was forced to establish his headquarters in Selma , Alabama , for the rest of the war . Later life and career . After the Civil War ended in 1865 , Anderson was paroled and he returned to Tennessee . He became a prominent businessman in Nashville and was active in veterans affairs . Samuel R . Anderson died in Nashville on January 2 , 1883 and is buried in the Nashville City Cemetery .