Benjamin McCulloch

**Benjamin McCulloch** (November 11, 1811 – March 7, 1862) was a soldier in the Texas Revolution, a Texas Ranger, a Major general in the Texas militia and thereafter a major in the United States Army during the Mexican-American War. He was afterwards a U.S. , and a Brigadier general in the army of the Confederate States during the American Civil War.

## Early life
McCulloch was born November 11, 1811 in Rutherford County, Tennessee. He was one of thirteen children and the fourth son of Alexander McCulloch and Frances Fisher LeNoir. His mother was a daughter of a prominent Virginian planter. They planned to meet Crockett at Nacogdoches on Christmas Day. At the end of the battle Houston found him and immediately promoted him to first lieutenant.

In 1837, he worked as a surveyor in the area around Gonzales, Texas. There he met and joined Jack Hays' company of Texas Rangers. He became an experienced Indian fighter. He fought in the Battle of Plum Creek in 1840. In 1841 he was part of the expedition against Indians along the tributaries of the Guadalupe River. In 1842 he was elected a first lieutenant in Captain Jack Hays' company of Rangers.

## Mexican War 
At the start of the Mexican War, McCulloch raised a company of volunteers that became Company A of Colonel Jack Hays' First Regiment, Texas Mounted volunteers. With his skills in tracking and scouting, he was soon named General Zachary Taylor's chief of scouts. He fought at the Battles of Monterey and Buena Vista. When the war ended, he held the rank of major.

McCulloch then scouted for Major General David E. Twiggs but joined the rush to the California gold fields in 1849. He never struck gold, but he was elected sheriff of Sacramento. (His old commander, Colonel Hays, had been elected sheriff of San Francisco on the same day.) His old friends Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk, both now in the U.S. Senate, tried to arrange for his appointment to command a frontier army regiment, but his lack of formal education was against him and so the appointment never went through. In 1852, President Franklin Pierce promised him command of the U.S. Second Cavalry, but U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis gave it to Albert Sidney Johnston.

McCulloch was appointed U.S. marshal for the Eastern District of Texas in 1852. He served during the Pierce and the Buchanan administrations. However, conscious of his lack of formal military education, he actually spent much of his term studying military science in libraries in Washington, DC. In the aftermath of the 1858 Utah War, he was one of the peace commissioners who was sent to negotiate with Brigham Young in Utah (the other being former Governor Lazarus W. Powell of Kentucky).

## Civil War
Texas seceded from the union on February 1, 1861, and on February 14, McCulloch received a colonel's commission. He was authorized to demand the surrender of all federal military posts in the state. U.S. Army General Twiggs turned over to McCulloch all federal property in San Antonio. In return, Twigg's troops were to be allowed to leave the state unharmed. On May 11, Davis appointed McCulloch a brigadier general.

McCulloch was placed in command of the Confederate troops in Arkansas. On August 10, 1861, McCulloch's poorly-armed troops defeated the army of General Nathaniel Lyon at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri.

Afterwards, he was put under the command of Major-Heneral Earl Van Dorn. At the battle of Battle of Pea Ridge, McCulloch was killed by a Union sharpshooter.

McCulloch's body was buried on the field at Pea Ridge. He was later removed to a cemetery in Little Rock. Finally, his body was later moved to the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.

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