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The Death Of Ben McCulloch I snuck out of camp and then I heard the news next night The Yankees won the battle and McCulloch lost his life… — Ben McCulloch; Steve Earle Ben McCulloch was a Tier 1 Frontier Partisan, one of the finest spies and rangers ever to saddle up to scout and rout an enemy. His work on behalf of the U.S. Army in northern Mexico led directly to the victory over Mexican General Santa Anna’s army at the Battle of Buena Vista in the U.S.-Mexican War of 1846-48. He led a “spy” patrol that located Santa Anna’s force in the dark. McCulloch sent most of the men back to U.S. General Zachary Taylor with word that Santa Anna was headed his way in force; he lingered to gather more intel on numbers and force composition. Overnight, McCulloch and a single companion played cat-and-mouse with a Mexican cavalry patrol and tried to avoid running into pickets. When dawn broke, it revealed 20,000 enemy in the camp and pickets building a fire at the foot of a hill 80 yards away. And somewhere nearby was a patrol of 20 cavalry. It took all of the Rangers’ skill to elude capture. In a brilliant feat of hiding in plain sight, they rode past one picket a hundred yards out, pretending to be Mexican horse hunters, riding up on little ridges and pointing here and there as if checking for sign. Returning to General Taylor’s bivouac at Agua Nueva, they found the army had decamped, warned by McCulloch’s returning patrol of Santa Anna’s approach. The American force had pulled back to a beautiful defensive position at Buena Vista, on high ground behind a pass through which Santa Anna must bring his force. Thanks to McCulloch’s reconnaissance, Taylor’s army not only escaped a surprise assault by Santa Anna’s force, Old Rough and Ready had time to choose his fighting ground on which he would deal out a decisive victory. In typical understatement, McCulloch summed up his work: “In this way we did the country some service.” McCulloch, along with Jack Hays, laid the foundation for the Texas Ranger tradition. When I first laid eyes on the general I knew he was a fightin’ man He was every inch a soldier, every word was his command Well his eyes were cold as the lead and steel forged into tools of war He took the lives of many and the souls of many more — Ben McCulloch; Steve Earle Ben McCulloch was born to lead light troops in battle. Yet his fondest wish — to command a regiment of U.S. Cavalry — was ever to be denied him. Ol’ Ben came up in a yeoman tradition, where natural leaders were pushed to the fore. But America in mid-19th century was becoming civilized, and soldiering for a living had become the domain of professionals. No matter how much respect he commanded, McCulloch was not going to get an official military command. When the American Civil War broke out, McCulloch threw himself ardently into the conflict on behalf of the Southern Confederacy. He was a pro-slavery man. As biographer Thomas W. Cuttrer writes: “Whatever his personal and financial interest in slavery might have been, Ben McCulloch was a product of his culture: the son of a slaveholding family and a proud citizen of a region increasingly embattled by northern and European foes for its dedication to the peculiar institution. McCulloch was fiercely committed to slavery in the abstract and looked upon the abolitionist assault on the institution as an affront to southern honor…” He took the surrender of the federal garrison at San Antonio, Texas, then petitioned for a command in the Confederate Army. Confederate President Jefferson Davis looked askance at non-professional frontier soldiers. Knowing full well that “Jeff Davis does not intend to give me any show,” McCulloch settled for a command in the backwater theater of the Trans-Mississippi West. His force was responsible for the defense of Arkansas and the Indian Territory. It is emblematic of McCulloch’s sense of himself as a citizen-soldier that he did not wear a uniform, opting instead for a civilian suit of black velvet. Sounds oddly swanky for a Frontier Partisan, but 19th-century men were often sartorially fancy. Buffalo Bill wore black velvet Vaquero trousers into combat in 1876. Anyways…. I have always thought that the cauldron of the Civil War would have made of McCulloch a commander as important as that other frontier-bred natural fighting man Nathan Bedford Forrest — but fate had something else in store. On March 7-8, 1862, Confederate forces under the overall command of General Earl Van Dorn, with McCulloch leading a division, clashed with Union troops at a crossroads marked by Elkhorn Tavern. It was a big and hard-fought battle, involving some 16,000 Confederate troops and 10,000 Union troops under General Samuel Curtis. The apparent Confederate numerical advantage was obviated by straggling and supply problems. Van Dorn divided his forces, attempting to flank the Federals, but inadequate communications left the maneuver poorly coordinated and unsuccessful. Scouting forward — always scouting forward — McCulloch fell to the fire of Union sharpshooters. His death dismayed Confederate troops, leaving them in disarray, and disrupted any momentum they had on the battlefield. The Death of Ben McCulloch as depicted at the site of the Pea Ridge Battlefield. Artist not credited. The Federal forces ultimately forced Van Dorn from the field in the two-day battle. The Union victory at Pea Ridge pretty much wrapped up large-scale conventional operations in the Trans-Mississippi theater of war. It secured Union control of Missouri and opened the road to the invasion of Arkansas. Conflict would continue, however, in nasty, grinding, irregular warfare. Guerrillas would challenge Union control, especially in western Missouri, through 1864. The History Underground takes us on a battlefield tour of the Pea Ridge Battle, including the spot where the Union sharpshooter shot Ben McCulloch out of his saddle. There is also an exploration of an incident in which Confederate Cherokee Mounted Rifles scalped Union troops they overran. In the years before the Civil War, Ben McCulloch pursued a variety of different business opportunities, with spotty success. One of them was repping a new breechloading firearm, called the Morse Carbine. Being a Mounted Ranger at heart, he liked its handling characteristics, and he thought he might make bank promoting the newfangled weapon. It was a real innovation, with a self-contained center-fire cartridge. Invented by George W. Morse, most of the Morse carbines were issued to the South Carolina Militia; limited numbers of the carbines were issued to other Confederate forces. These carbines were manufactured on machinery that had been captured by the Confederates from the Harpers Ferry Armory. The carbine is chambered in .50 caliber, and it is loaded by raising the breech block upward. McCulloch never made any money off his affiliation with the Morse Carbine, but he never lost faith in it. He was carrying a Morse when he was killed.