George Bibb Crittenden, commander of the Confederate forces at Mill Springs, had a brother who was a Union general and a father who was a prominent U.S. Senator

Russellville, Kentucky, in what was then the far west of the United States, is where George Bibb Crittenden was born on March 20, 1812. He was descended from a well-known Bluegrass family. In addition to serving as Kentucky's 17th governor and as a US senator, George's father, John J. Crittenden was also a well-known politician and the descendant of a Revolutionary War veteran.

Thomas Leonidas Crittenden, George's brother, rose to the rank of major general in the Union army and oversaw the fighting at Cold Harbor, Stones River, Chickamauga, and Spotsylvania Court House. Contrary to his brother Thomas Leonidas, who rose to the rank of major general for the Union, Crittenden's allegiances lay with the South, and during the early 1861 secession crisis, George received a position as a colonel in the Confederate States Army. He received a promotion and was given the East Tennessee District. His forces were routed by Union General George H. Thomas in the Battle of Mill Springs on January 18, 1862, severely weakening the Confederate grip on eastern Kentucky. The Confederate military campaign suffered its first defeat on the battlefield.