John T. Croxton - Civil War

Civil War

In October 1861, as the Civil War escalated, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Croxton as the lieutenant colonel of the 4th Kentucky Mounted Infantry. He saw his first significant fighting in the Battle of Mill Springs. He later rose to its colonel in early 1862, and fought at Perryville. On September 19, 1863, his infantry brigade tangled with Confederate cavalry under Nathan Bedford Forrest, touching off the Battle of Chickamauga. Croxton was wounded during the fighting. He suffered a leg wound at the Battle of Nashville.

In 1864, he was promoted to brigadier general at the age of 27, leading a cavalry brigade in the Army of the Cumberland during the Atlanta Campaign. His cavalry was active in Alabama during the final months of the war. On April 4, 1865, his force of 1,500 men seized Tuscaloosa, strengthening the Union army's grip on central Alabama and eliminating one of the Confederacy's last major supply and munitions centers. In the process, they burned most of the University of Alabama's buildings, as well as much of the town's industry and warehouses. On April 23, 1865, Croxton's troopers fought the Battle of Munford near Talladega, Alabama, defeating several hundred Confederate troops under General Benjamin Jefferson Hill. This is said to have been the last battle of the Civil War, east of the Mississippi.