• Source: William Preston Anderson

William Preston Anderson (1774–1831) was a United States Attorney, colonel during the War of 1812, surveyor, and land speculator in Tennessee and Alabama, United States. He is best known today for his association with U.S. president Andrew Jackson and as the father of a general of the Confederate States Army.




Career


Anderson was a native of Botetourt County, Virginia, born about 1775. According to a family history, "During the second term of General Washington's administration [1793–1797], he received from the President, a commission of Lieutenant in the U. S. Army." In 1797 he was licensed to practice law in Tennessee. Anderson was the third United States Attorney for the District of Tennessee, serving from 1798 to 1802. Once upon a time, "Anderson had supplied [Andrew] Jackson with such goodies as game cocks from Virginia and hot tips on land investments." According to John Spencer Bassett's notes in The Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Clover Bottom "was leased in November 21, 1804, by William Preston Anderson, with the privilege of buying 300 acres on the south for $3,000. On March 5, 1805, he sold two-thirds of his rights in the enterprise to Andrew Jackson and John Hutchings, and Apr. 8, 1806, he sold the remaining third to John Coffee." Anderson and his brother Patton Anderson won $4,000 by betting on Jackson's horse Truxton against Joseph Erwin's horse Ploughboy.
He was appointed Surveyor General of the district of Tennessee. Anderson was the district surveyor "who had been one of those instrumental in effecting" the Chickasaw treaty of 1805, and was part of an extended network of speculators, bankers, surveyors, and public officials that included John Brahan, James Jackson, John Coffee, John Drake, John Strother, Edward Ward, and Thomas Freeman. Some or all of these men also had connections to Andrew Jackson and were involved in the settlement by white slave owners of what became the Huntsville, Alabama metropolitan area. In 1806 Anderson may have lived or worked at a place called Federal Bottom, as there is notebook in the early land records of Tennessee recorded as "Anderson & Strother memorandum or Day Book made 1st May 1806. Federal Bottom," and on December 31, 1806, he sent a letter to Andrew Jackson from Federal Bottom that was to be opened only by Jackson or John Coffee. The letter to Jackson touched on a number of issues, among which was that he owned Jackson money and wondered if Jackson would accept "a negro...or a land warrant" or both, in lieu of cash.
Meriweather Lewis left two trunks full of possessions and documents with William P. Anderson (recorded in some accounts as William C. Anderson). After Lewis' death on the Natchez Trace in 1809, William Clark wrote his brother that he was going to check with Anderson about the papers. According to an inventory signed by Anderson, William R. Boote, John Brahan, and Thomas Freeman, most but not all of the items and papers in the trunks were sent to Washington, D.C. in November 1809, a handful of items were left with Anderson, the most substantial of which was "One Tomahawk—handsomely moun[te]d."
Anderson served under Jackson in the Tennessee militia before and during the War of 1812. In 1813 Anderson was named superintendent of the Nashville recruiting district. During the war he was colonel of the 24th United States Infantry, and engaged in the battle of Fort Harrison. According to the editors of The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Anderson was "Jackson's aide de camp from 1803 to 1812, when he resigned to accept a commission as lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. The friendship ended sometime later, perhaps during Jackson's quarrel in 1817 with Anderson's father-in-law, John Adair."
The cause of their falling out is unknown, but it might have started with "the ridiculous hotel brawl" between Jackson, Jesse Benton, and Thomas Hart Benton. During the 1828 election cycle, Anderson presented letters from the duel surgeon, Dr. May, about potential misconduct by Jackson during the Dickinson duel. He also wrote a public message to Jackson, his former friend:

1st. Your besetting sins are, ambition, and the love of money. To acquire the latter you will act miserly and oppress your best friends; and when in pursuit of either, you are not what you profess to be.
2d. You are naturally and constitutionally irritable, overbearing and tyrannical.
3d. You are incapable of expending any charity toward those who happen to differ with you in opinion.
4th. You cannot investigate dispassionately any interesting or important subject, and if you could, your knowledge and abilities are not equal to the task.
5th. When you become the enemy of any man, you will put him down if you can, no matter by what means, fair or foul, honorable or dishonorable; if it be consistent with your views of popularity and interest, you will turn about and support the very man you have before attempted to destroy and pull down. These examples will suffice for the present; the Hon. Wm. H. Crawford, Gen. John Adair, and Col. Thos. H. Benton.

6th. You are miserably deficient in principle, and have seldom or never had power without abusing it.
This got Anderson called a man "whose mind is much disturbed and shattered" by Jackson partisans, and the effort was ultimately to no avail: Jackson went on to eight years in the White House, while Anderson returned to private life. Anderson died in April 1831.




Patton Anderson


William P. Anderson had a brother named Patton Anderson, who apparently worked as a trader of land warrants, horses, and slaves. On October 24, 1810, Anderson's brother Patton Anderson was shot and killed by David Magness in Shelbyville, Tennessee. The Magnesses were defended by Felix Grundy in their first trial, during which Patton Anderson was characterized as an unruly drunk and a violent character generally. The Magnesses also seemed to have unsavory reputations and the course of testimony of the whole trial was such that lawyers were asking character witnesses questions like "Did you ever bite off Dick Scruggs' nose?"
Character witnesses in Anderson's favor included Nashville mayor Joseph Coleman, and Andrew Jackson, who undermined the prosecution's case when he testified something to the effect of "Sir, my friend Patton Anderson was the natural enemy of villains and scoundrels!" None of the Magnesses were convicted of anything in the shooting death of Anderson, although by the time the cases were resolved two years later they had served considerable time in jail. The Magnesses later relocated to Arkansas.




Personal


Anderson was married twice, and fathered a total of 10 children. He married first, Nancy Bell of Davidson County, Tennessee, in 1800. She died in 1809. His second wife, Margaret Lapsley Adair, was a daughter of politician John L. Adair of Kentucky. One of Anderson's sons by his second marriage was J. Patton Anderson who served as a colonel of the Mississippi Rifles in the Mexican-American War and was a general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.




See also


Alabama real estate bubble of the 1810s
Andrew Jackson and the slave trade in the United States




References






Sources

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