Background
He was born on April 20, 1809 near Abingdon, Virginia, United States, the son of Francis Smith and Sarah Buchanan (Campbell) Preston, and the brother of William Campbell Preston.
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He was born on April 20, 1809 near Abingdon, Virginia, United States, the son of Francis Smith and Sarah Buchanan (Campbell) Preston, and the brother of William Campbell Preston.
Contemporary accounts state that he received the degree of A. B. from Hampden-Sydney College, but the college records indicate only that he was in attendance from 1823 to 1825. He was a student at the University of Virginia from 1825 to 1827 and afterward studied law at Harvard for a short time.
After marriage he settled at Abingdon to practise law. But his wife's family lived near Columbia, South Carolina, and his brother William had attained prominence there, and in 1840 he moved there.
Not long afterward he went to Louisiana where he owned a large sugar plantation, "The Homus, " which he operated so successfully that in a few years he amassed a fortune. He became an enthusiastic collector of paintings and statuary, and, recognizing ability in Hiram Powers, who was called to his attention by his brother William, furnished him money with which to go to Europe.
Preston was back in South Carolina in 1848, and made the first of his better-known speeches in welcoming the "Palmetto regiment" on its return from Mexico. In the same year he was elected to the state Senate and served continuously until 1856.
From 1856 to 1860 he lived in Europe where his children were educated. In 1860, upon his return, he was chairman of the state delegation in the Charleston convention. In February 1861 he was appointed commissioner to visit Virginia and urge secession upon the convention then in session.
At the outbreak of the war Preston became a volunteer aide to Beauregard and was with him in Charleston and in the Manassas campaign. Beauregard entrusted him with important duties and after the battle officially commended his services. On August 13, 1861, he was commissioned assistant adjutant-general with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In October he was relieved of duty with the Army of the Potomac and expected to join General Lovell's staff, but instead he was sent to Charleston to muster troops into the Confederate service. In December Beauregard recommended that he be commissioned brigadier and placed in command of the second brigade of Kentucky troops. On January 28, 1862, he was assigned to command of the prison camp at Columbia, and in April to command of the conscript camp there. He disliked the task, but he carried out its duties cheerfully and so effectively that in July 1863 Secretary Seddon, in a most complimentary letter, requested him to become superintendent of the Bureau of Conscription in Richmond. In the meantime, on April 23, he had been promoted colonel. Accepting, he was assigned to the post and held it until the bureau was discontinued in March 1865.
Late in 1864 he prepared an elaborate and able discussion of the administration of the law, with numerous suggestions for improvement. On June 10, 1864, he was promoted brigadier-general. After the discontinuance of the bureau he returned to South Carolina. After the war he spent some time in England.
Upon his return in 1868 he made an address at the University of Virginia which attracted attention and criticism in the North. Then and thereafter he was completely unreconstructed, and his speech was a passionate defense of secession and an argument against reconciliation. His last speech was delivered at the unveiling of the Confederate monument in Columbia in 1880. He died in Columbia, South Carolina.
As a state Senate, John Smith Preston became increasingly known for his genuine power as a public speaker and as a radical champion of state rights. He was also the state's delegate dispatched to help convince the Virginia Secession Convention to join South Carolina in seceding from the antebellum Union in the months prior to the start of the American Civil War. As superintendent of the Bureau of Conscription in Richmond Preston made an excellent record, he established an effective administrative system and so improved the service that was given control of conscription in the West where it had been separately administered.
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He acted with a vigor, initiative, and independence that at times involved him in controversies from which he regularly emerged victor. He was a speaker of real force and had the power of sweeping his audiences to a high pitch of enthusiasm.
After a trip to Europe he married, April 28, 1830, Caroline Martha, the daughter of Gen. Wade Hampton, Sr.
