George Bibb Crittenden (20 March 1812 – 27 November 1880) was a Major-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Crittenden briefly led the Military District of East Tennessee at the start of the war, but he was relieved after his defeat at Mill Springs.
Biography[]
George B. Crittenden was born in Russellville, Kentucky in 1812, the son of US Senator John J. Crittenden, and he graduated from West Point in 1832. Crittenden served in the Black Hawk War as a US Army soldier, and he served in the Texian Army from 1842 to 1846, being captured during a failed expedition to Tamaulipas in 1843. He rejoined the US Army when the Mexican-American War broke out, serving in the mounted rifles at Contreras and Churubusco. On 16 March 1861, he was commissioned into the Confederate States Army as a colonel when the American Civil War broke out, and he commanded the Military District of East Tennessee in the early stages of the war. In 1862, he was defeated at the Battle of Mill Springs, during which General Felix Zollicoffer was killed. He also served in the Army of Central Kentucky, only to be relieved on 31 March 1862 for his drunkenness. In October 1862, he reverted to colonel, and he would not hold a command again. From 1867 to 1871, he served as State Librarian of Kentucky, and he died in 1880 at the age of 68.