Before the war, Hinson was a prosperous land and slave-owner[1] of Scotch-Irish descent, owning a plantation named "Bubbling Springs" with his wife and 10 children.

[8] Hinson served as a guide for Nathan Bedford Forrest during his successful cavalry raid on the Union supply base at the Battle of Johnsonville in November 1864.

Hinson himself evaded capture, despite elements of four Union regiments being assigned at different times to pursue him, due to help from the locals and constant movement.

[12] Area newspapers in 1873 had been full of stories about the pursuit and capture of "Captain Jack", but those references are to Modoc chief Kintpuash, not to Hinson.

Hinson is commemorated in a roadside marker just across the state border in Kentucky,[13] and his story has been told in two books by Tom McKenney: