ABERCROMBIE, LEONARD ANDERSON (1832-1891). Leonard Anderson Abercrombie, lawyer, Confederate Army officer, and legislator, was born in Macon County, Alabama, on December 1, 1832, the son of Milo B. and Sarah (Anderson) Abercrombie. He was educated in Alexandria, Virginia, and read law in Tuskegee, Alabama. He was admitted to the bar in 1854 but later that same year moved to Madison County, Texas, then to Huntsville. In 1860 he was elected prosecuting attorney for Galveston, Grimes, Harris, Montgomery, and Walker counties. On January 1, 1860, he married Lavinia Chilton in Tuskegee, Alabama; the couple eventually had seven children. From January 28 until February 4, 1861, Abercrombie represented Walker County as a delegate to the state Secession Convention.qv During the Civil Warqv he served as lieutenant colonel of Col. Henry M. Elmore's Twentieth Texas Infantry. This regiment, organized in the spring of 1862, was composed primarily of middle-aged men, many of whom were prominent citizens. It was assigned to guard duty on the Texas Gulf coast from Galveston to the Sabine River and did not see duty outside of the state. It did, however, play an important role in the Confederate recapture of Galveston in January 1863 (see GALVESTON, BATTLE OF). After the war Abercrombie returned to his legal practice at Huntsville and was elected to represent the Ninth District as a state senator in the Twentieth Legislature. He was reelected to a seat in the Twenty-first Legislature. He died at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 23, 1891, and his body was returned to Huntsville for burial.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Norman Kittrell, Governors Who Have Been and Other Public Men of Texas (Houston: Dealy-Adey-Elgin, 1921). Marcus J. Wright, comp., and Harold B. Simpson, ed., Texas in the War, 1861-1865 (Hillsboro, Texas: Hill Junior College Press, 1965).
Thomas W. Cutrer
