Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General, US Congressman. He commanded three different Pennsylvania infantry units during the Civil War. He began his service on August 21, 1862, when he was commissioned as Major of the 132nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, a nine-month enlistment unit. A month later he was with the regiment as it fought first in the Battle of South Mountain, Maryland, then in the bloody battle of Antietam, where its colonel was killed and where the regiment lost over 140 men. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on September 18, 1862, he was second in command as the regiment fought in the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, where it again took horrific casualties (over 150 killed, wounded and missing), as it was in one of the futile attacks on the impregnable Confederate positions on Mary's Heights. In January 1863 he was promoted to full Colonel and commander of the 132nd Pennsylvania, and led the regiment in its third battle in May 1863 at Chancellorsville (where he briefly commanded a brigade). Now a veteran of three major battles at the end of his enlistment, he was mustered out with the regiment on May 24, 1863. The subsequent Confederate Invasion of Pennsylvania the next month prompted Charles Albright to rejoin the Union war effort, and he was appointed as Colonel and commander of the 34th Pennsylvania Emergency Troops, a unit that was raised to help meet that crisis. After the conclusion of the June-July 1863 Gettysburg Campaign, he and his troops were honorably discharged in August 1863. Over a year later he rejoined the war effort for a third time, accepting a commission of Colonel and commander of the 202nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry on September 3, 1864. After seeing limited duty and skirmishing in the Shenandoah Valley, Colonel Albright and his men were ordered to serve in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region, where he was a native. There he served in command of the district until his honorable discharge on August 3, 1865. He was brevetted Brigadier General, US Volunteers on March 7, 1865. He became a prominent post-War lawyer and iron manufacturer, and was elected to represent Pennsylvania as an At-Large Delegate in the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1873 to 1875.