BG Charles Sidney Winder

BG Charles Sidney Winder was born in Talbot County, Maryland on 18 Oct 1829. He was the fifth of seven children of Edward Stoughton and Elizabeth Tayloe (Lloyd) Winder. The Winder family was well established in Maryland and wealthy, owning several thousand acres in the state. Charles' father was an officer in the 2nd Dragoons, commanding A Company in 1837-1840 and away from home much of the time. Charles was educated, as many were at the time, by tutors and being self-taught.

Charles graduated twenty-second in the West Point class of 1850 and then served on garrison and frontier duty for the next ten years. While on board a ship to California in 1854, he displayed outstanding heroism when the the ship was caught in a hurricane. This act earned him promotion to Captain, supposedly the youngest man of that rank in the army at the time. Charles was married in 1855 to Alice Lloyd and the couple would have three children over the next five years. Resigning his commission on 1 Apr 1861, he entered Confederate service as a Major of artillery. He participated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and on 8 July of that year he became Colonel of the 6th South Carolina Infantry. COL Winder was promoted to Brigadier General on 7 Mar 1862 and he was selected by Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to command the Stonewall Brigade. A strict, disciplinarian, he enforced the rules, and veterans despised him. BG Winder commanded the Brigade during Jackson's 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Then, on 9 Aug 1862, during the Battle of Cedar Mountain, he was badly wounded by an exploding shell and died on the field a few hours later.

BG Winder rests forever at Wye House Cemetery in Easton, Maryland.

BG Winder is survived by several living descendants.  His father died at home of an unknown disease contracted while serving at Fort Heilman, Florida in the Second Seminole War. Grandfather, MG Levin Winder, served in the Maryland Line during the revolution and commanded the Maryland Militia after the war and was elected Governor of Maryland, 1812-1815.