Albert G. Jenkins

American attorney, planter, politician and military officer

Albert Gallatin Jenkins (November 10, 1830 – May 21, 1864) was an American attorney, planter, politician and military officer who fought for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He served in the United States Congress and later the First Confederate Congress. After Virginia's secession from the Union, Jenkins raised a company of partisan rangers and rose to become a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army, commanding a brigade of cavalry. Wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and again during the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain, during which he was captured, Jenkins died just 12 days after his arm was amputated by Union Army surgeons as he was unable to recover. His former home is now operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Jenkins was born to the wealthy plantation owner Capt. William Jenkins and his wife Jeanette Grigsby McNutt in Cabell County, in what was then Virginia. After a private education suitable for his class, he attended Marshall Academy when he was fifteen. He graduated from Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1848 and from Harvard Law School in 1850.

Admitted to the Virginia bar the same year, Jenkins practiced in Charleston. In 1859, he inherited part of his father's sprawling slave plantation. He was named a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Cincinnati in 1856, and was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty fifth and Thirty sixth United States Congresses.

With the outbreak of the Civil War and Virginia's subsequent secession, Jenkins resigned from Congress in early 1861. He raised a company of mounted partisan rangers, which by June was enrolled in the Confederate Army as a part of the 8th Virginia Cavalry, with Jenkins as its colonel. The company was first organized to protect a Virginia flag that had been raised in Guyandotte, which they did until April 20, 1861. By the year's end, his men had become such a nuisance to the Federals in western Virginia that military governor Francis H. Pierpont appealed to President Abraham Lincoln to send in a strong leader to stamp out the rebellion in the area. Early in 1862, Jenkins was elected as a delegate to the First Confederate Congress. After promotion to brigadier general on August 1, 1862, he returned to active duty. Throughout the fall, his men harassed Union troops and supply lines, including the vital Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. In September, Jenkins's cavalry raided northern Kentucky and now West Virginia. They briefly entered extreme southern Ohio across from Ravenswood, West Virginia, becoming one of the first organized Confederate units to enter a Northern state. By November 1862, a grand jury in Cabell County returned misdemeanor indictment against Jenkins, however no copy of these indictments remain. These legal issues most likely came about from Jenkins' raiding in the area. He accompanied Ewell's column to Carlisle, briefly skirmishing with Union militia at the Battle of Sporting Hill near Harrisburg. During the subsequent Battle of Gettysburg, Jenkins was wounded on July 2 and missed the rest of the fighting. Jenkins did not recover sufficiently to rejoin his command until fall, and spent the early part of 1864 raising and organizing a large cavalry force for service in western Virginia. By May, he had been appointed Commander of the Department of Western Virginia with his headquarters at Dublin. Hearing that Union Brig. Gen. George Crook had been dispatched from the Kanawha Valley with a large force, Jenkins took the field to contest the Federal arrival. On May 9, 1864, he was severely wounded and captured during the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain, a Union victory which destroyed the last railroad line connecting Tennessee and Virginia.

Albert Jenkins married Virginia Southard Bowlin of St. Louis, Missouri, on July 15, 1858. Together they had four children, James Bowlin, Alberta Gallatin, Margaret Virginia, and George. On July 7, 2020, the Marshall University Board of Governors voted unanimously to remove the name from its education building. In 2005, a monument to General Jenkins was erected in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, commemorating his service during the Gettysburg Campaign. In the summer of 2020, the monument was removed.