Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/351

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CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.
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office until his death, March 24, 1890. His judicial career was distinguished by high moral courage, as well as professional ability, and he was regarded as one of the leading jurists of the State. He was a descendant of John Jackson, an Irishman who settled in Maryland about 1748, and twenty years later removed to the Buckhannon river region, western Virginia. His son Edward was the grandfather of Judge William L. Jackson, also of Gen. Stonewall Jackson. His elder son, George, member of Congress, was the ancestor of John G. Jackson, M. C., Gen. John J. Jackson, U. S. A., a famous Whig leader, and Jacob J. Jackson, governor of West Virginia. The younger son of the original settler was Edward, whose son, Col. William L. Jackson, married Harriet Wilson, and became the father of Judge William L. Jackson. Jonathan, another son of Edward, was the father of the immortal Stonewall Jackson.

Brigadier-General Albert Gallatin Jenkins was born in Cabell county, Va., November 10, 1830, and was educated at the Virginia military institute and Jefferson college, Pa., being graduated at the latter institution in 1848. He then entered upon the study of law at Harvard college, and in 1850 was admitted to the bar, but never practiced the profession, returning instead to his extensive plantation. But he did not entirely devote himself to agriculture, taking an active and influential part in public affairs. He was a delegate to the National Democratic convention of 1856, and was then elected to the United States Congress, serving in the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses, from 1857 to 1861. Upon the secession of Virginia he heartily supported his State, and while a soldier was elected as one of the representatives of Virginia in the first congress of the Confederate States, which met at Richmond, February, 1862. Here he creditably performed his duties, but it was mainly as a daring and chivalrous cavalry