Z. Patterson Childress was born around 1826 in South Carolina. By 1860, he was working as a blacksmith in Greenville District, South Carolina. He enlisted in the Confederate army in June 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company F of Hampton’s Legion. The unit took part in the First Battle of Manassas and the Peninsula campaign. By June 1862, he was suffering from “debility,” and he was admitted to Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. In December 1862, his service records listed him as “Absent” and “Supposed to be dead.”