Sackfield Maclin was born around 1810 in Tennessee. He married Arabelle Booth on December 8, 1836, and they had at least three children: Robert, born around 1838; James, born around 1842; and John, born on September 22, 1847. By 1860, the family was living in San Antonio, Texas. Maclin worked as a paymaster in the United States Army. He resigned from the army in February 1861, and he served in the Confederate Ordnance Bureau and Commissary Department during the Civil War. Union General Philip Sheridan ordered Maclin arrested in November 1865 and confined him at Fort Jackson. He was eventually released on parole. He died on February 9, 1876.