John Christopher Winsmith

Son of wealthy Spartanburg physician, state legislator, and militia officer, John Winsmith, he was usually known as Christopher. He attended the South Carolina Military Academy (the Citadel), but was expelled for conduct in 1851, and later graduated from the South Carolina College and the Charleston College Law School.

At age 25 he enlisted on 13 April 1861 at Spartanburg as a Private in Company G of the 5th South Carolina Infantry. In July 1861 (and again in January 1862) he applied to the Secretary of War for a commission in the CS Army, with some sterling recommendations including from Governor Pickens, James Chestnut, General D.R. Jones, and Colonel Micah Jenkins, but without result.

He was discharged from the 5th Infantry on 11 January 1862 and enrolled again, on 29 March 1862 at Spartanburg, SC, and was elected Captain of Company H, First South Carolina Infantry on 15 April.

He was slightly wounded in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862, his left foot bruised by a shell.

He was with his company until seriously wounded by a gunshot to his right shoulder in the assault on Fort Harrison near Petersburg, VA on 30 September 1864, his shoulder blade and colarbones broken. He was in a Richmond, VA hospital then sent on furlough to Glen Springs, SC. He was there to the end of the war.

He was a state militia officer and by 1870 was a lawyer in Spartanburg, SC.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3, also as Christopher Winsmith, with Sharpsburg detail from the Memoirs.2 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860 & 1870, and La Borde's History of the South Carolina College ... (1859). His memorial is on Findagrave.

He married Mary Virginia Ross (1847-1926) in November 1868.

The John Christopher Winsmith Papers are in the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina, Columbia.

10/22/1835; Spartanburg District, SC

07/31/1877; in SC