James Madison Tuttle (September 24, 1823 – October 24, 1892) was a soldier, businessman, and politician from the state of Iowa who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

When he was ten years old, Tuttle's family moved to Indiana, where his father, a Maine-born farmer who kept migrating westward, finally settled in Fayette County.

[3] Tuttle entered local politics as a Democrat, and was elected in 1855 as the sheriff of Van Buren County, serving two years.

[3] At the February 1862 Battle of Fort Donelson in Tennessee, he led his regiment in a successful charge into the Confederate earthworks.

At the Battle of Shiloh in April, Tuttle commanded a brigade in Maj. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace's division, composed of the 2nd, 7th, 8th, 12th and 14th Iowa Infantry, as well as an artillery battery.

During the fall and winter of 1862, General Tuttle commanded the Union garrison at the vital supply town of Cairo, Illinois.

Tuttle went on to participate that summer in the Vicksburg Campaign and thereafter the capture of Jackson, Mississippi, where he again distinguished himself in action and parlayed his growing name recognition into a run for Governor of Iowa as a Democrat.

Senator Francis Kernan, Elder was granted the freedom to practice his religion without obeying Tuttle's directive.