John H. Winder was born on February 21, 1800, in Somerset County, Maryland, the son of William H. Winder and his wife, Gertrude Polk, the grand-nephew of Levin Winder, sometime governor of Maryland and a descendant of John Winder of Cumberland, England, who emigrated to America about 1665.
In 1814, Winder entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, and graduated 11th of 30 cadets in 1820.
He was assigned to service with the artillery, and later served as instructor of tactics at the Academy while Jefferson Davis was a cadet. He resigned in 1823 for a period of four years but was then assigned to duty in Maine, Florida, and elsewhere, and was brevetted major and later lieutenant-colonel for his conduct in the Mexican War.
On November 22, 1860, he attained the regular rank of major of artillery but resigned on April 27, 1861 because of Southern sympathies.
He was appointed brigadier - general and made provost-marshal and commander of the Northern prisons in Richmond. In this thankless position he soon received severe criticism. During the next few months he was upbraided for issuing passports through the lines too freely, but the mistake here lay largely with Secretary of War Benjamin. He was repeatedly criticized for the conduct of Baltimore "rowdies" whom he employed as detectives and assistants. Among the distasteful tasks to which he was assigned were the returning of stragglers, absentees, and deserters to their commands, the guarding of prisoners and assisting with their exchange, and the maintenance of order among the unruly element in the war-swollen population of the Confederate capital. During April 1862 he fixed prices in Richmond and secured some little temporary relief.
In April 1864 he was reported as being also in charge of the prison at Danville, Virginia, and a few months later, most of the enlisted men having been removed to Andersonville and many officers to Macon, he was put in command of all the prisons in Alabama and Georgia. On November 21, 1864, he was appointed commissary-general of prisoners east of the Mississippi. Not long afterwards he died on February 7, 1865, in Florence, South Carolina, of disease brought on by the fatigue and anxiety occasioned by his duties.
In 1823, John H. Winder married Elizabeth Shepherd, he daughter of Andrew Shepherd of Georgia. Later he married Catherine A. Eagle.
William Henry Winder was an American soldier and lawyer. In 1799, William H. Winder married his cousin Gertrude, the daughter of William Polk of Somerset County. The couple had two sons.
Catherine A. Cox was married to Joseph Eagle, a planter on the Cape Fear River, who later died. Her second husband was John H. Winder.
