Thomas Leonidas Crittenden (15 May 1819-23 October 1893) was a Union Army Major-General during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Thomas Leonidas Crittenden was born in Russellville, Kentucky in 1819, the son of US Senator John J. Crittenden, the brother of George B. Crittenden, and the cousin of Thomas Turpin Crittenden. He later married his stepsister and had a son, John Jordan Crittenden III. Crittenden worked as a lawyer before serving in the US Army during the Mexican-American War and as US consul in Liverpool, England. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Thomas and his father remained loyal to the Union, while George joined the Confederacy. Crittenden took command of the 5th Division in the Army of the Ohio, and, after the Battle of Shiloh, he was promoted to Major-General and given command of II Corps. His corps became the left wing of the Army of the Cumberland, which was heavily engaged at the Battle of Stones River, the Tullahoma Campaign, and the Battle of Chickamauga, where he was blamed for the defeat before being acquitted. After Thomas G. Stevenson was killed at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in 1864, Crittenden took command of his division, fighting at the Battle of Cold Harbor before resigning on 13 December 1864. After the war, he served as state treasurer of Kentucky. He died in Annadale, Staten Island in 1893 at the age of 74.
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