Henry Watkins Allen - Civil War Service

Civil War Service

Allen joined the Confederate Army as a lieutenant colonel on August 15, 1861, and was promoted to colonel on March 1, 1862. He was wounded at Shiloh and Baton Rouge.

Sarah Morgan met Colonel Allen on November 2, 1862, when he was still unable to walk due to his wounds in both legs at the Battle of Baton Rouge. She described him as a "wee little man" with a "pasty face".

Allen became a brigadier general on August 19, 1863, and was elected Governor of Louisiana in 1864, losing office when the Confederacy collapsed in 1865.

As governor, Allen secured legislative passage of a law to prevent illegal impressment by Confederate agents. Another law allowed Allen to purchase medicine and to distribute it to the needy. Disabled soldiers were provided with $11 per month. Allen procured the establishment of new hospitals both with public funds and private contributions. Recognizing the lack of manufacturing industry in Louisiana he established a system of state stores, foundries, and factories with the goal this new works would be put to civilian production after the war. Because the lack of medicine was acute in the Confederacy he devoted extensive time and resources toward establishing a large intelligence and covert action service which could secretly procure vital supplies especially medicine such as quinine from behind Union lines in New Orleans or from Mexico. Having established the state's military-industrial complex in a short twelve months, state laboratories were soon manufacturing turpentine, castor oil, medicinal alcohol, and carbonate of soda. Allen made arrangement with General Edmund Kirby-Smith to transfer to the state large amounts of cotton and sugar collected by Confederate agents as tax in-kind until the Confederate debt could be retired. He tried to make the state self-sufficient and also guarded the civil liberties of the citizens from infringement by military authorities.