Alexander C. Jones
{{Short description|American lawyer and diplomat (1830–1898)}}
Alexander Caldwell Jones was an American lawyer, journalist, diplomat, and Confederate States Army officer during the American Civil War.
File:Presidential pardson for ex-Confederates from Virginia and West Virginia.jpg
Early life
He was born in 1830 near Moundsville, West Virginia, at that time a part of Virginia, to Garrison B. Jones and Martha Houston. He enrolled at Virginia Military Institute on July 28, 1846, and was graduated on July 4, 1850.[https://www.vmi.edu/academics/library/test/civil-war-and-new-market/vmi-civil-war-generals/ Alexander C. Jones, Class of 1850], VMI Civil War Generals
He then studied law and moved to Minnesota territory, where he became a district attorney and served as probate judge in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1858-1860 he served as Minnesota's adjutant general.
Civil War
When his native state declared its secession from the United States in 1861 he returned to Virginia, where he joined the 44th Virginia Infantry. He was commissioned a lieutenant-colonel on May 1, 1862, and was wounded in the Battle of Gaines's Mill.
After convalescing from his injuries and serving in the Bureau of Conscription he resigned his commission on June 16, 1863, and requested a transfer to the Trans-Mississippi Dept. There he served on John Bankhead Magruder's staff and was then given the command of a Texas brigade of infantry. Gen. Kirby Smith recommended his promotion to brigadier-general on March 16, 1865, although there is no confirmation of his appointment. Jones was paroled in Brownsville, Texas on July 24, 1865, as a "brigadier-general". He was given a presidential pardon, dated August 15, 1865, sponsored by the Attorney General and the Hon. J. J. Jackson, which described him as a "rebel brigadier general".[https://books.google.com/books?id=01dHAQAAIAAJ&dq=Alexander+C.+Jones+pardon+%22hon.+j.j.+jackson%22&pg=PA367 House Documents: Volume 7; Volume 232, United States House of Representatives, January 1, 1867, U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 17]
Later life
Jones left for Mexico to serve under Emperor Maximilian until the fall of his regime. He then returned to West Virginia, and lived in Wheeling with his wife Ella Clemens' family. He became the editor of the National Intelligencer, but that newspaper failed in 1869.
In 1880 he was appointed U.S. Consul in Nagasaki[https://jp.usembassy.gov/consulate-history-in-nagasaki/ Consulate History in Nagasaki], U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Japan and was transferred in 1886 to the China embassy in Chungking, where he died on Jan. 13, 1898.Allardice, Bruce S. [https://books.google.com/books?id=d7kKuAZFDu0C&dq=Alexander%20Caldwell%20Jones&pg=PA137 More Generals in Gray]. Louisiana State University Press, 1995, pp. 137-138.
References
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Category:People from Moundsville, West Virginia
Category:Virginia Military Institute alumni
Category:People of West Virginia in the American Civil War
Category:Military personnel from Minnesota
Category:Consuls for the United States
Category:Confederate States Army officers
Category:Military personnel from Wheeling, West Virginia