The Battle of Cloyd's Mountain was a Union victory in western Virginia on May 9, 1864, that allowed the Union forces to destroy a large bridge on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. The railroad was used to carry Confederate troops and supplies, and served important lead and salt mines. It also helped connect the Confederate capital of Richmond with Tennessee, and had telegraph wires along its line for communications. The fight had a high percentage of casualties for both sides, and the Confederate commander, Brigadier General Albert G. Jenkins, was mortally wounded.

Albert Gallatin Jenkins was an American attorney, planter, politician and military officer who fought for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He served in the United States Congress and later the First Confederate Congress. After Virginia's secession from the Union, Jenkins raised a company of partisan rangers and rose to become a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army, commanding a brigade of cavalry. Wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and again during the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain, during which he was captured, Jenkins died just 12 days after his arm was amputated by Union Army surgeons as he was unable to recover. His former home is now operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.