John Wesley Hodnett was born around 1839 in Georgia to William Hodnett and Caroline Finley. His father was a farmer who owned $6,000 of real estate and $8,000 of personal property. The family lived in Troup County, Georgia. Hodnett enlisted in the Confederate army on July 8, 1861, and mustered in as a private in Company K of the 13th Georgia Infantry. The regiment took part in the Second Battle of Manassas and the Battle of Antietam. A friend declared that Hodnett was a “good Citizen a good Soldier & better still a Christian.” He fell ill with smallpox in the fall of 1862 as his regiment returned from Antietam, and he “died in an old out house nere Middletown Verginia” on November 24, 1862.