Winfield S. Featherston - Civil War

Civil War

With the secession of Mississippi, Featherston was appointed to visit neutral Kentucky to try to influence Governor Beriah Magoffin into also leading his state from the Union. With the start of the Civil War in early 1861, Featherston raised a regiment of infantry (17th Mississippi) and became its colonel. He fought at the First Battle of Manassas and was cited for gallantry at the Battle of Ball's Bluff. He was commissioned as a brigadier general on March 4, 1862. He led a brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign and was wounded during the Seven Days Battles. He then participated in the fighting at the Second Battle of Manassas, as well as at Antietam and Fredericksburg. He was among a number of generals that Robert E. Lee removed from command or reassigned when he reorganized his army, along with Nathan G. Evans, Thomas F. Drayton, Roger Pryor, and several others.

Transferred to Mississippi in early 1863, Featherston assumed command of a brigade of Mississippians in Loring's Division in the army of Joseph E. Johnston. He fought in several major campaigns in the Western Theater, including the Vicksburg Campaign in 1863 and the Atlanta Campaign the following year. Loring's men accompanied the Army of Tennessee during John Bell Hood's Tennessee Campaign.

In early 1865, he participated in the Carolinas Campaign and surrendered with Johnston's army at Bennett Place in North Carolina. He was paroled in Greensboro, North Carolina, on May 1, 1865.