Early Life and Career
Charles DeWitt Anderson was born in July of either 1827 or 1829 in South Carolina. In 1839 his family immigrated by sea to Texas, at the time an independent nation and not a U.S. state until 1845. During the voyage both of his parents died, and after arriving at the port of Galveston Anderson and his brother were adopted by an Episcopal minister, who raised them both.
In 1846 Anderson became the first Texan appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He had been recommended by Texas' founder, Sam Houston, and he began attending on September 1. Anderson struggled academically at West Point; during his sophomore year he was found "deficient" in both French and mathematics, and resigned from the academy on November 13, 1848. Despite this, in 1856 Anderson was directly commissioned into the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant on June 27. He was assigned to the 4th U.S. Artillery and was promoted to first lieutenant on July 6, 1859. Anderson served with the 4th in Florida and then in the Utah Territory, and he was there when the Civil War began in 1861. Acquiring a leave of absence he headed home, and (after covering about 100 miles of wintry terrain) Anderson then decided to resign from the U.S. Army, which was accepted effective on April 1, 1861.
Read more about this topic: Charles De Witt Anderson
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“I looked at my daughters, and my boyhood picture, and appreciated the gift of parenthood, at that moment, more than any other gift I have ever been given. For what person, except one’s own children, would want so deeply and sincerely to have shared your childhood? Who else would think your insignificant and petty life so precious in the living, so rich in its expressiveness, that it would be worth partaking of what you were, to understand what you are?”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“When a man’s life is destroyed or damaged by some wound or privation of soul or body, which is due to other men’s actions or negligence, it is not only his sensibility that suffers but also his aspiration toward the good. Therefore there has been sacrilege towards that which is sacred in him.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)