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Confederate (CSV)

Major

John Selden Saunders

(1836 - 1904)

Home State: Virginia

Education: US Military Academy, West Point, NY, Class of 1858;Class Rank: 5

Command Billet: Division Chief of Artillery

Branch of Service: Artillery

Unit: Anderson's Division Artillery

Before Sharpsburg

From a long line of US Army and Naval officers, he entered St. James College (MD) at 15, and West Point at 18.1 After graduating in 1858 he served with the 2nd US Artillery and then transferred to the Ordnance Department. He resigned his Federal commission to go South on 21 April 1861. 2 He served as Ordnance Officer in Richmond, and Chief of Artillery at Norfolk and Vicksburg before being assigned as Artillery Battalion commander in the ANV.1

On the Campaign

He was in command of Anderson's Division Artillery Battalion at Sharpsburg.

The rest of the War

He was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of Artillery 14 November 1862, and in December was again assigned duty at Richmond as Assistant Inspector General, C. S. A. He served in various staff jobs in Mississippi, Georgia, and the Carolinas for the remainder of the War.3,4 In April 1865 he surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse as Assistant Ordnance Officer, Army of Northern Virginia.1

After the War

He moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1867. He joined the Maryland National Guard as Colonel, Inspector General of Brigade, in 1887, and was appointed Maryland Adjutant General in 1900 serving to 1904. 1

References & notes

Birth and death details also from Krick.4

Birth

01/30/1836; Norfolk, VA

Death

01/19/1904; Baltimore, MD

Notes

1   Maryland State Archives, Archives of Maryland Online, Published c. 2002, first accessed 01 January 2002, <http://aomol.net/html/index.html>, Source page: Volume 114 (Maryland Manual, 1902), Page 238  [AotW citation 329]

2   Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, p. 861  [AotW citation 330]

3   US War Department, The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (OR), 128 vols., Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1880-1901, Series 1, Vol 40, Part 3 (Ser #82), Pg. 797  [AotW citation 331]

4   Krick, Robert K., Lee's Colonels: A Biographical Register of the Field Officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, Dayton (Oh): Morningside Press, 1979, pg. 308  [AotW citation 354]