Christopher Gustavus Memminger was born in Nayhingen, Württemberg, Germany on 09 January 1803. His mother and grandparents immigrated to Charleston, Charleston District, South Carolina soon after his birth and the death of his father. He was orphaned by a yellow fever epidemic when he was four, and was placed in the Charleston Orphan House. Thomas Bennett, Jr. (14 August 1781-30 January 1865), later Governor of South Carolina, adopted him when he was nine. In 1819, he graduated from South Carolina College (now University of South Carolina) in Columbia, Richland District, South Carolina. He then studied law, become a successful attorney, and married Mary Wilkinson in 1832.

     He was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives, serving 1836 to 1852, and again from 1854 to 1860. As Chairman of the Finance Committee, he gained a reputation as a sound financier. During his second term, he radically reorganized his state's educational system, including funding for both white and black schools. In 1860, he was a delegate to the South Carolina Secession Convention.

     During the war, he was a deputy from South Carolina to the Provisional Confederate Congress, was one of the framers of the Provisional Confederate Constitution, and was appointed Secretary of the Treasury on 21 February 1861. Faced with no government treasury, and a general public aversion to taxation, he did the best he could for the country. Despite his noble efforts, inflation eventually became unbearable. He resigned from his post on 18 July 1864, due to personal criticism for the Confederacy's failing economy. He spent the remainder of the war at his summer home in Flat Rock, Henderson County, North Carolina.

     After receiving a pardon for his involvement in the war, he returned to Charleston. He formally retired from politics in 1867, continued his law practice, and was involved with a chemical manufacturing company. Memminger died in Charleston, Charleston County, South Carolina on 07 March 1888, and is buried in St. John in the Wilderness Cemetery in Flat Rock, Henderson County, North Carolina.