Anthony/Brady.   During the early part of the Civil War, Lander served with distinction on secret missions as a volunteer aide de camp on the staff of General McClellan. He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on May 17, 1861, and served on the staff of General Thomas A. Morris during the battles of Philippi and Rich Mountain and many minor skirmishes. Lander published a popular poem on the Battle of Ball's Bluff, as well as several other patriotic poems that drew national attention.At the conclusion of the Western Virginia campaign, General Lander was assigned to command a brigade in Charles Pomeroy Stone's Division of the Army of the Potomac. After just a short time in command of a brigade he was assigned to command the District of Harpers Ferry & Cumberland, Maryland where he was involved in a small engagement at Edward's Ferry, the day after the Battle of Ball's Bluff and was badly wounded in the leg. He was now given the command of a division in the Army of the Potomac with the task of protecting the upper Potomac River. When Confederate forces under Stonewall Jackson bombarded Hancock, Maryland, Lander refused to surrender the town, forcing the Confederates to withdraw towards, Romney, West Virginia. He led a successful charge against a Confederate camp at Bloomery Gap on February 14, 1862. About 2 weeks later he was stricken by a "congestive chill."Death and legacyLander died from complications of pneumonia at Camp Chase, Paw Paw, Virginia (later West Virginia) on March 2, 1862, after receiving no response to his requests for relief from command due to poor health for over two weeks.[6] President Lincoln attended his funeral at the Church of the Epiphany in Washington.[7]Lander had married English-born stage actress Jean Margaret Davenport in San Francisco in October 1860, but the couple had no children. Davenport served as a Union military nurse and supervisor for two years in South Carolina after her husband's death. He is buried at the Broad Street Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts.