John Anthony Winston (September 4, 1812 – December 21, 1871) was a planter, military officer, and politician who became the 15th Governor of Alabama (1853 to 1857) after serving as president of the state senate (1845–1849).

[1] Alabama's first native-born governor, Winston later fought for the Confederate States of America as colonel of the 8th Alabama Infantry early in the American Civil War, and after the conflict was not permitted to assume a seat in the United States Senate.

[2] He was born in 1812 to the former Mary Cooper and her planter husband William Winston in Tuscumbia, in Madison County, then in the Alabama Territory.

John Anthony Winston married his first cousin, Mary Agness Jones (1819–1835), on August 7, 1832, in Madison County, Alabama.

Winston continued his family's tradition of political involvement in 1840, winning an election to the state House of Representatives and re-election in 1842.