James Craig (February 28, 1818 – October 22, 1888) was an American lawyer and politician from Saint Joseph, Missouri.

From April to November 1862, Craig was the military commander in charge of the overland mail routes in Kansas and Nebraska.

[1][a] He was two years old when his family relocated to Richland County, Ohio, where Craig was raised and educated.

[1] At age 22, Craig began to study law in the Canton, Ohio office of Harris and Brown.

[1] During the Mexican–American War, he organized a company of the Missouri Militia's Oregon Battalion which he commanded as a captain as it provided protection for wagon trains of migrants and supplies in western Missouri, Kansas, and other western states.

In 1850, he returned to Missouri and settled in St. Joseph, where he practiced law in partnership with Lawrence Archer.

[1] A supporter of the Union during the American Civil War, in 1861 he was commissioned as a brigadier general of United States Volunteers and assigned to command the Union Army's Department of the Platte, where he was directed to maintain federal relationships with the Pawnee and Sioux in Kansas, Nebraska and other nearby states.