Richard Snowden Andrews

Who was Richard Snowden Andrews?

Richard Snowden Andrews was an American architect and a Confederate artillery commander and diplomat during the American Civil War.

Andrews was a native of Baltimore, Maryland. A prolific antebellum architect, he designed the Weston State Hospital in West Virginia, the largest hand-cut stone building in America, in Gothic Revival and Tudor Revival styles. His other commissions included the Maryland Governor's residence in Annapolis and the south wing of the U.S. Treasury Building in Washington, D.C.

Andrews' sister married Virginian Charles Marshall, who would become a key member of Robert E. Lee's staff during the war.

During the Civil War, Andrews organized the First Maryland Light Artillery. He was later promoted to major in charge of a battalion of artillery batteries. Andrews was first wounded during the Seven Days Battles in July 1862.

In August of that year, the 31-year-old major was in charge of General Charles S. Winder's divisional artillery. On August 9, at the Battle of Cedar Mountain in Virginia, a Federal shell exploded close by, which nearly disemboweled Andrews when fragments struck his right side. Holding in his intestines with one hand and sliding from his horse, he fell to the ground and landed on his back. He lay there for hours before being sent to hospital. When surgeons examined him, they all insisted that the wound was fatal. In one account, the hospital surgeon insisted that there would be but one chance in a hundred of his survival. Reportedly Andrews answered, "Well, I am going to hold on to my one chance." The surgeon sewed him up with needle and thread and left him his one chance. Within eight months, and after being fitted with a silver plate over his wound, he returned to his unit. But luck left him again at the Second Battle of Winchester when he was wounded once more. Around this time, Snowden received the commission of colonel. After recovery from this third wound, he was assigned as an envoy to Germany.