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.