Baltimore Family’s Heirloom Album Reveals Early Baltimore History and Leads To Acclaimed Novel

PRLog (Press Release) - Aug. 11, 2011 - The ancestral niece of Baltimore native son, Cyprian T. (C.T.) Jenkins, was so inspired by a Civil War album belonging to the Confederate hero that she penned a full-length historical novel commemorating his life.  Entitled Jenkins: Confederate Blockade Runner, the novel is available to libraries through Ingram, as well as Barnes & Noble and Amazon, announces publisher, A.V. Harrison Publishing.  “Jenkins, the son of Belvedere District residents William V. Jenkins and Anne Marie Wells, struck out from Baltimore in the 1830s and made quite a name for himself,” Emily Hill, author, explains. “Many of his writings and historical notes are held in the Library of Congress,” she adds.

The heirloom is a thirty-six plate leather bound photograph album, dated 1864.  Colonel Jenkins was captured on 01 June 1863 for blockade running in Florida waters and  imprisoned at Fort Warren, Boston.  He maintained the album while in prison and sent it on to his daughter in 1864.  The historic photograph album was left to Ms. Hill by her great aunt, a Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl, who retired to Florida in the 1960’s.

Ms. Hill spent fifteen years researching the familial connections between the novels protagonist, C.T. Jenkins, and other Baltimore family members including that of James Ryder Randall, author of Maryland’s state song, “Maryland, My Maryland” .  Randall visited the Colonel at his Florida home in 1859.   This visit between the Confederate hero and Randall is mentioned in the poet’s Baltimore Sun published autobiography.  

Jenkins: Confederate Blockade Runner explores the daunting struggles and tangled manipulations that catapulted the communities of Bay Port and Brooksville, Florida into the middle of the Union’s Gulf Coast campaign.  “As the drum beat for war builds in the foreground of the novel, the personal story of main character C.T. Jenkins plays out as a man seeking redemption for youthful misjudgments that affected his Baltimore family.  The novel details Jenkins’ relationship with his Florida neighbors and exposes the behind-the-scene story of his marriage into the Colburn family of Vermont,” explained the author in a recent interview.

Colonel Jenkins’ remains lie in the Lake Lindsay Cemetery, outside Brooksville, Florida, next to those of Lucy Davey Colburn, his long-time friend and mother-in-law.  Mrs. Colburn was the mother of Union Army AAG, Albert V. Colburn.    Colburn is buried, with honors, at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Fair Haven, Vermont.

Jenkins:  Confederate Blockade Runner is available on Amazon.com.   Visit http://www.amazon.com/Jenkins-Confederate-Blockade-Runner... for details.

Jenkins: Confederate Blockade Runner (print edition) is also available for order nationwide at all Barnes & Noble outlets. ISBN:  978-0-9829713-5-2

# # #

A.V. Harrison Publishing features ground-breaking topics from emerging authors. Its books are distributed by Ingram, available on Amazon.com and B&N Nook. Owner, Emily Hill, invites submissions and can be contacted at info@avharrison-publishing.com.

Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/11620976/1