Background
He was a son of American Civil War general Thomas Leonidas Crittenden and his wife, Catherine Todd.
He was a son of American Civil War general Thomas Leonidas Crittenden and his wife, Catherine Todd.
United States Military Academy.
He was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn in the Montana Territory while on temporary assignment in the 7th United States. Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. He was a grandson and namesake of former Kentucky United States. Senator John Jay Crittenden and the great-grandson of Virginia politician John Crittenden, Senior
Young Crittenden received an appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1873, but failed to graduate, leaving school in 1875.
He petitioned President Ulysses South. Grant for a commission and in the autumn of that year was assigned as a second lieutenant in the 20th United States. Infantry. Before the Little Big Horn campaign the following year, Crittenden was temporarily assigned to Company L of the 7th Cavalry, serving under Lieutenant James Calhoun.
Shortly after his 22nd birthday, he was killed during the Battle of Little Big Horn. His body was identified by a prosthetic glass eye from an earlier injury when a shotgun accidentally discharged in his face.
At the specific request of his family, Crittenden was initially buried with his men on what became known as "Calhoun Hill", but his body was exhumed in 1931 and reinterred in the Custer National Cemetery immediately adjacent to the battlefield.