May 21, 1864: Confederate Gen. and Former Congressman Albert Gallatin Jenkins Killed in Battle

On May 21, 1864, Confederate General and former Congressman Albert Gallatin Jenkins was killed at the Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain, Virginia. He was 33.

As a young man, the Cabell County native had attended Marshall Academy, Jefferson College, and Harvard Law School before being elected twice to Congress. In 1859, he inherited his father’s plantation in Cabell County and became one of the largest slaveholders in present West Virginia.

When the Civil War began, Jenkins stepped down from Congress and recruited a unit of Confederate troops, known as the Border Rangers. The rangers played a key role in the Confederate victory at Scary Creek in Putnam County in July 1861. The next month, he formed the 8^th Virginia Cavalry, which led a surprise raid on a Union camp at Guyandotte in November.

In 1862, Jenkins was elected to the Confederate Congress but soon returned to the army as a brigadier general. Two years later, he met his fate at Cloyd’s Mountain.

Jenkins is buried in Huntington’s Spring Hill Cemetery. And his home at Green Bottom is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.