John McPherson Pinckney

A 16 year old farm boy on his father's place at Fields Store in Grimes County, he enlisted there as a Private in Company G, 4th Texas Infantry on 19 July 1861.

He was in action with his Company at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September and was wounded in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was captured on the Nansemond River at Suffolk VA in April or May 1863 and was sent to Fortress Monroe, VA on 13 May 1863 for exchange. He was wounded again, on 6 May 1864, in the Wilderness, VA. He was surrendered with his Company and paroled at Appomattox Court House, VA on 9 April 1863.

He was a cotton weigher, was elected Justice of the Peace in 1870 then studied the law, and was admitted to the bar in 1875. He practiced in Hempstead, the seat of Waller County, TX. He was District Attorney there from 1890 to 1900 and Waller County Judge to 1903. He was elected to the US House of Representatives in a special election that year and reelected in 1904.

In April 1905, 59 years old, he was killed, along with his brother Thomas and two other men, during something of a riot at the Waller County Courthouse.

Service information from Davis1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 via fold3. His Congressional Biography and other sources say he achieved the rank of First Lieutenant during the war, but there's no evidence of that in his service records. Personal details from family genealogists. and his bio sketch in the Handbook of Texas (1952, 2019). His gravesite is on Findagrave.

His brother Robert was also in Company G and at Sharpsburg.

He did not marry, but lived for many years with his also-unmarried sister Susanna Shubrick Hayne Pinckney (1843-1909). See more about him, his sister, and another soldier of the 4th Texas over on the blog.

05/04/1845; Fields Store, TX

04/25/1905; Hempstead, TX; burial in Hempstead Cemetery, Hempstead, TX