Walter Gwynn (February 22, 1802 – February 6, 1882) was an American civil engineer and soldier who became a Virginia Provisional Army general and North Carolina militia brigadier general in the early days of the American Civil War in 1861 and subsequently a Confederate States Army colonel. He was a railroad engineer and railroad president before the Civil War, Florida Comptroller in 1863 and a civil engineer after the Civil War. Early life Gwynn was born in Jefferson County, Virginia (now West Virginia), the grandson of Humphrey Gwynn, a descendant of Colonel Hugh Gwynn, who settled in Virginia before 1640. Walter Gwynn was the son of Thomas Peyton Gwynn, born April 19, 1762, and Ann. Thomas Peyton Gwynn died in 1810, the same year his daughter, Frances Ann Gwynn, married William Branch Giles, Senator and later Governor of Virginia. William B. Giles and Frances were Walter Gwynn's guardians in 1818 when he entered West Point, according to the records. United States Military He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in the Class of 1822 and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Artillery, later transferring to the 4th U.S. Artillery. In 1827, while still an artillery lieutenant, he helped survey the route for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O). Civil Engineer He resigned his army commission in February 1832. From 1833 to 1836, he worked as chief engineer in charge of the construction of the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad. He was Superintendent and Chief Engineer of the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad in North Carolina from 1836 to 1840; also during this period, he conducted surveys for several other railroad and canal projects in Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. From 1842 to 1846 he was president of the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad, and in 1846, he became president of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company, a position which he held until 1853, when he moved from Richmond, Virginia, to Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1850, Gwynn was hired by the North Carolina Rail Road Company as Chief Engineer "Employed on the Surveys and Location of the North Carolina Rail Road, from the commencement of operations to the completion of the location." Gwynn supervised construction of the North Carolina Railroad until it was completed in early 1856. Between 1853 and 1855, he conducted surveys for the Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad and the