[6] His mother, Regina Mohyła (Raina Mohylanka) was a Moldavian-born noble woman of the Movilești family, daughter of the Moldavian Prince Ieremia Movilă, Jeremy's namesake; she died in 1619.

[8] In 1631 Wiśniowiecki returned to the Commonwealth and took over from his uncle the management of his father's huge estate, which included a large part of what is now Ukraine.

[9][10] The Orthodox Church feared losing a powerful protector, and Isaiah Kopinsky, metropolitan bishop of Kyiv and a friend of his mother, unsuccessfully pleaded with him to change his mind.

[11] In that war he accompanied castellan Aleksander Piaseczyński's southern army and took part in several battles, among them the unsuccessful siege of Putyvl; later that year they took Rylsk and Sevsk before retreating.

[14] As his troops formed 2/3 of their army (not counting supporting Cossack elements), Jeremi, despite being the most junior of commanders, had much influence over their campaign.

[20] Following this, Jeremi distanced himself from the royal court, although he periodically returned to Warsaw, usually as one of the deputies to the Sejm from the Ruthenian Voivodeship (today Ukraine).

[23] Other than this conflict, in his years as a deputy (1635–46), Jeremi wasn't involved in any major political issues, and only twice (in 1640 and 1642) he served in the minor function of a commissar for investigating the eastern and southern border disputes.

[23] In 1637 Wiśniowiecki might have fought under Hetman Mikołaj Potocki against the Cossack rebellion of Pavlo Pavliuk (the Pawluk Uprising); Jan Widacki notes that historians are not certain whether he did and in either case, no detailed accounts of his possible participation survive.

[28] In 1644 together with Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski he took part in the victorious Battle of Ochmatów, in which they crushed forces of Crimean Tatars led by Toğay bey (Tuhaj Bej).

[35] He notes that such an army might have been useful in provoking the Ottomans, but as Jeremi was opposed to the war with them up to the point of refusing the hetman office, his actions are puzzling even for the modern historians.

He received information about a growing unrest,[36] and began mobilizing his troops, and in early May learned about the Cossack victory at the Battle of Zhovti Vody.

[37] Receiving no orders from Hetmans Mikołaj Potocki and Marcin Kalinowski, he began moving on his own, soon learning about the second Cossack victory at Battle of Korsuń, which meant that his troops (about 6,000 strong) were the only Polish forces in Transdnieper at that moment.

[43] Around late August or early September, Wiśniowiecki met with the army regimentarzs Władysław Dominik Zasławski-Ostrogski, Mikołaj Ostroróg and Aleksander Koniecpolski.

[47] In the end, the cities were not captured by the Cossacks, who in the light of the coming winter decided to retreat, after being paid a ransom by both town councils; no other large field battle took place that year.

A major camp was in Zbarazh, where Wiśniowiecki would arrive as well in late June, after gathering a new army of 3,000 in Wiśnicz, which was all he was able to afford at that time, due to most of his estates being overrun by the Cossacks.

[53] Wiśniowiecki's command during the siege was seen as phenomenal, and his popularity among the troops and nobility rose again, however the King, still not fond of him, gave him a relatively small reward (the land grant of starostwo przasnyskie, much less when compared to several others he distributed around that time).

[54] In April 1650, Wiśniowiecki had to return his temporary hetman office to Mikołaj Potocki, recently released from Cossack's captivity.

[61] Based on sparse descriptions of his illness and subsequent investigations, some medical historians suggest the cause of death might have been a disease related to cholera.

[61] However, one account states, "following a cheerful conversation with other officers who had congregated for a military council in his tent on Sunday 13 August N.S.

In the end, he never received the large funeral and the temporary location of his body, the monastery of the Holy Cross at Łysa Góra, became his final resting place.

In the interwar period, the authenticity was questioned by the magnate's biographer, Władysław Tomkiewicz [pl], who argued that the body had been burned in a fire in 1777.

No traces of the autopsy performed in the 17th century were found; however, it is likely that this person lived in the same historical period[66] and their corpse was kept on display in the monastery as Wiśniowiecki.

[71] The prosperity of those lands reflected Wiśniowiecki's skills in economic management, and the income from his territories (estimated at 600,000 złotys yearly) made him one of the wealthiest magnates in the Commonwealth.

[73] Jan Widacki notes that much of the historiography concerning Wiśniowiecki focuses on the military and political aspects of his life, and few of his critics discuss his successes in the economic development of his estates.

[74] In the 19th century this image started to waver, as a new wave in historiography began to reinterpret his life, and as the era of positivism in Poland put more value on builders, and less on warriors.

Slowly, Wiśniowiecki's image as a hero began to waver, with various aspects of his life and personality being questioned and criticized in the work of historians such as Karol Szajnocha and Józef Szujski.