Albert Gallatin Jenkins died #OTD in 1864. Born in 1830 to wealthy parents on a plantation in Cabell County, near what is now Huntington, WV, Jenkins attended @marshallu and graduated from @wjcollege in 1848 before completing a law degree at @Harvard_Law in 1850.🧵
He opened a law practice in Charleston, WV, and was elected as a Democrat to the US House of Representatives in 1856, and again in 1858. Upon his father's death, he inherited his plantation, Green Bottom, in 1859.
At the outbreak of the #CivilWar, despite coming from the part of Virginia that separated and remained loyal to the United States, Jenkins elected to resign from Congress and raise troops for the confederate army. He became commander of the 8th Virginia Cavalry.
He served in the Shenandoah Valley and during the @GettysburgNMP Campaign, before being named commander of the Department of Western Virginia. He had been in command only one day before opposing @USArmy troops under General George Crook at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain.
While rallying his men during the confederate defeat, Jenkins was shot in the arm and captured by U.S. troops. The arm was amputated, but he didn't recover and died on May 21, 1864, twelve days after the battle. He is buried in Spring Hill Cemetery in Huntington.
Jenkins Hall on the campus at Marshall University is named after him. The fact that Jenkins enslaved Black people caused the school's Board of Governors to reconsider the building's name, voting in July 2020 to remove his name. It is now just known as the Education Building.
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