Lytle family

The family produced several notable figures, including William Haines Lytle (1826–1863), a lawyer, poet, and Brigadier General who died in the American Civil War.

The family's influence extended to politics, with members such as Robert Todd Lytle serving in the United States Congress.

Considered the first landed millionaire in the West, Lytle lost most of his money during a financial panic when western landowners could not pay their debts and the banks in Cincinnati failed.

He funded it with $500 of his personal money, land donated by his father William Lytle, and $500 he solicited from a group of prominent first citizens of Cincinnati (John H. Piatt, David E. Wade, Ethan Stone, William Corry, John H. Lytle, Gen. James Findlay, Andrew Mack, Jacob Burnet).

His most famous poem, Antony and Cleopatra, was beloved by both North and South in antebellum America and regularly memorized by school children in the U.S. through the 1940s.

Lytle Hill, in Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, is named for him and a monument in the shape of a pile of cannonballs marks the spot where he fell.

A Guard of Honor composed of fifteen officers and men from the 10th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was appointed to escort Lytle's body from Chickamauga to Cincinnati.

[4] Under a flag of truce, both southern and northern soldiers escorted his body to Louisville where it was loaded on a paddle-wheeler and returned to Cincinnati.

[5] A branch of this family settled to the north in Butler County, where Judge Robert Lytle acquired a section of land from the U.S. and named it Milford Township.

Prominent descendants include Sen. Homer Truett Bone, Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard, Gov.