Peter Crosby

Early life and military service Peter Crosby was born, as a slave, in , in Clarke County, Mississippi, U.S. Some records have his year of birth as 1846. At the age of 20 during the American Civil War, Crosby joined the United States Colored Troops (a Union Army regiment) in Company C, 5th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Crosby was a Republican and was elected as county sheriff in November 1873, and he was to assume the office the following January 1, 1874. They reinstated Crosby as sheriff shortly after the arrival of the U.S. Army.

Warren County would not see another Black sheriff serve until Otha Jones, appointed from 1995 to 1996 (120 years after Crosby). There are no known images of Crosby. In 2015, a portrait of Crosby by local student Michael Neal was added to the lobby of the sheriff's office in Warren County placed alongside many of the other historical sheriffs.