CAPT. C. T. ALLEN, Caldwell County, editor of the Princeton Banner, was born June 5, 1841, in Lunenburg County, Va. He was a graduate from Richmond College at Richmond, Va., in June, 1860. In 1861 he entered the Confederate army as lieutenant in Company C, Twentieth Regiment of Virginia Volunteers, and participated in the Rich Mountain campaign under Gen. Robert S. Garnett. At the battle of Rich Mountain on July 11, 1861, his regiment was so cut to pieces, captured, etc., that it was disbanded in the fall of 1861. In January following, Capt. Allen again entered the service as lieutenant of the "Lunenburg Rebel Artillery," one of the largest and finest companies ever mustered into the Confederate service. He became captain of this company in June, 1862, by the resignation of Capt. Hawthorne, and his company was incorporated with the Second Regiment of Virginia Artillery. He had command of the Iron Battery on James River, at Chaffin's Bluff, ten miles below Richmond, and took part in the storming of Fort Harrison, just in the rear of Chaffin's Bluff, September 29, 1864, where he received three slight wounds. For his behavior on this field he was recommended by his commanding officer, Gen. R. S. Ewell, for promotion to the position of lieutenant-colonel of artillery, which recommendation was favorably endorsed by Gen. R. E. Lee. Capt. Allen also participated in the battle of Sailor's Creek, in Amelia County, Va., on April 6, 1865, the last general battle of Lee's army, where he was again wounded and where he lost thirty-one men, killed and wounded, from his company, then numbering seventy odd. The fact that over 3,000 men were killed and wounded in this battle and quite 10,000 captured, attests its fury. With other officers captured on the retreat from Richmond, Capt. Allen was sent to Johnson's Island, Lake Erie, and there remained until all the Confederate armies had surrendered. He was in the old capitol prison, Washington City, on the terrible night of President Lincoln's assassination, when several hundred Confederate officers were saved from massacre, by a mob, by the thoughtful and generous action of Gen. Green Clay Smith, then a member of congress from Kentucky. Capt. Allen was married in 1863 to Miss Luce Ashby Meade, daughter of Hon. Robert E. Meade, of Brunswick County, Va.; she died at Princeton in July, 1882. He next married Miss Lizzie Taylor Meade, a half sister of his first wife, in March, 1884. In the reorganization of political parties after the war, Capt. Allen espoused the cause of the Conservative-Democratic party, and was the nominee of that party for the State senate of Virginia in 1869, but was defeated by a carpet-bagger. In 1869 Capt. Allen came to Kentucky and taught school for a few months at Cerulean Springs, Trigg County. In 1870 he located at Princeton and began the practice of law, which profession he had followed in Virginia. In 1871 he founded the Princeton Banner, since which date he has devoted his energies to journalism. In 1876 he was the Democratic elector for the First District of Kentucky; was elected to the Legislature from Caldwell County in 1877, and re-elected in 1879; was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention in 1880, and made a good though unsuccessful run for lieutenant-governor of the State in 1883.

 

Source:  J. H. Battle, W. H. Perrin, & G. C. Kniffin. Kentucky. A History of the State. Louisville, KY, Chicago, IL: Battey, 1885. Pages 688-689.