Henry Watkins Allen

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Henry Watkins Allen

Henry Watkins Allen , (born April 29, 1820 in Farmville , Prince Edward County , Virginia , † April 22, 1866 in Mexico City , Mexico ) was Governor of the US state of Louisiana and a brigadier general of the Confederate Army in the Civil War .

Life

Allen was born as the son of Dr. Thomas and Ann Allen, b. Watkins, born. In 1833 the family moved to Missouri . Henry began an apprenticeship as a salesman in a Lexington store . He then wanted to attend Marion College in Philadelphia , but ran away from home after an argument with his father and moved to Grand Gulf (Mississippi) Grand Gulf , Mississippi , where he worked on a plantation during the day from 1837 and studied law in the evening. In 1841 he was admitted to the bar.

In 1842 he served as a volunteer in the Texas Army along the border with Mexico . He returned to Grand Gulf six months later, married Salome Ann Crane, and turned to politics. From 1845 he represented the Whigs in the Mississippi House of Representatives for the next two years . 1851 his wife died and Allen moved into the West Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana , where he received a sugar plantation with 125 slaves of Colonel William Nolan 300,000 dollars bought (the buildings were burned down later in the Civil War by Union troops) and one company to build a railway from West Baton Rouge, now Port Allen , based in Rosedale , Louisiana. In 1855 he lost the election to the state senator and went on a major trip through Europe. In 1857 he was elected in absentia for the Know-Nothing Party in the Louisiana House of Representatives, after which he returned there and occupied himself with politics until the outbreak of the Civil War . In 1859 he switched to the Democrats , whose leader he became; In 1860 he joined the Delta Rifle Company as a volunteer soldier .

In 1861 he was instrumental in rebuilding the Historic Society of Louisiana, of which he became president. On May 1, 1861, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and appointed deputy commander of the 4th Louisiana Infantry Regiment. Before he was transferred to Tennessee with Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard , he was promoted to colonel . In 1862 he took command of the 4th Louisiana Infantry Regiment and fought at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6 and 7, 1862, where he was wounded by a bullet in the cheek. On August 5, he commanded a brigade at the Battle of Baton Rouge and was wounded several times in both legs. Unfit for field service, he served as the commander of the Jackson , Mississippi Military District .

In August 1863 the Confederate Army commissioned him to reintegrate prisoners of war into the army in Shreveport , Louisiana. In November of the same year he was elected governor of Confederate Louisiana. During this time, he organized state stores, foundries, and factories, as well as a cotton processing factory, to support families in western Louisiana. With simple means he restored the economy. One way of doing this was by exporting cotton through Mexico, which was intended to bypass the Union's blockade .

On June 2, 1865, he went into exile with other officers in Mexico, where he published an English-language newspaper, The Mexico Times . He died in Mexico on April 22, 1866 and was buried in the American cemetery.

According to him, Allen Parish named in Louisiana.

See also

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personal data
SURNAME Allen, Henry Watkins
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Governor of Louisiana and General of the Confederate States of America
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH Farmville , Virginia
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1866
Place of death Mexico City , Mexico