Winfield S . Featherston Winfield Scott Featherston " Old Swet " ( August 8 , 1820 – May 28 , 1891 ) was an antebellum two - term U . S . Representative from Mississippi and a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . He was later a state politician and a circuit court judge . Early life and career . Winfield S . Featherston was born near Murfreesboro , Tennessee , the youngest of seven children of Charles and Lucy Featherston , who had recently emigrated from Virginia . Featherston completed his preparatory studies , but left high school in 1836 to enroll in a local militia group to fight Creek Indians during the Creek War . He later moved to Mississippi and settled in Houston , where he studied law . He was admitted to the bar in 1840 and established a successful law practice . Featherston was elected as a Democrat to the Thirtieth and Thirty - first Congresses ( March 4 , 1847 – March 3 , 1851 ) . He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1850 to the Thirty - second Congress , being defeated by John Allen Wilcox . He returned home to Houston and resumed his law practice . He moved to Holly Springs , Mississippi , in 1856 and began a new law practice in that town . Two years later , he married Elizabeth McEwen , the daughter of the town ' s leading merchant . The couple would raise a large family in Holly Springs . 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 . Postbellum career . With the war over , Featherston returned to his home and family in Holly Springs . Later that same year , he was an unsuccessful candidate for United States Senator from Mississippi . Featherston returned to his law practice and later served as president of the state taxpayer ' s convention which protested against high taxes and wasteful government spending of carpetbagger Governor Adelbert Ames . He was elected to the State House of Representatives in 1876 , where he continued his battle against the former Union general . Featherston ' s wife Elizabeth died at their home of yellow fever in 1878 , as did some of their children ( four survived ) . Featherston was elected to another term in the state legislature in 1880 , where he chaired the Judiciary Committee . He was a delegate to the 1880 Democratic National Convention . In 1882 , he became judge of the second judicial circuit of Mississippi . He was member of the State constitutional convention in 1890 . Featherston died from paralysis at his home in Holly Springs , Mississippi on May 28 , 1891 . He was interred in the town ' s Hill Crest Cemetery .