Henry Watkins Allen was a member of the Confederate States Army and the Texian Army as a soldier, also serving as a military leader, politician, writer, slaver owner, and sugar cane planter.
He had made it to the rank of brigadier general in the Confederate States Army, during the American Civil War. Allen was elected as the 17th Governor of Louisiana late in the war, Allen served from January 1864 to May 1865. He was the last governor elected under Constitutional law to the post until the end of Reconstruction. He escaped to Mexico, until his death a year later. His body was returned to the United States and buried in New Orleans.