John Samuel Caskie (November 8, 1821 – December 16, 1869) was a nineteenth-century congressman, lawyer, judge and Confederate soldier from Virginia.

In December 1845, Judge Philip Norborne Nicholas appointed him Commonwealth attorney (prosecutor) for Richmond and Henrico County.

[3][4] In the 1850 census, 29 year old Caskie owned no slaves but real estate valued at $1000 in Richmond and lived with his wife (as discussed below) as well as a slightly younger lawyer, Marmaduke Johnson (age 25, possibly his brother in law) and a 19-year-old woman, Harriet Chapman, who may have been a servant or boarder.

[5] Politically a follower of John C. Calhoun, and protege of James Alexander Seddon (who served 2 terms in Congress and eventually became the CSA Secretary of War), Caskie delivered stump speeches for states rights Democrats beginning in 1842, despite the initial political dominance of the Whig part in Richmond and vicinity.

He played an important behind-the scenes role in passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and rose to become a senior member of the Committee on the Judiciary during the last three Congresses in which he served.

During the Civil War, he enlisted several times as a private or corporal in various artillery and reserve infantry units, including on April 25, 1861, but was discharged two months later, possibly because of infirmities or his young and after 1862 motherless family.