Gen. Ben. McCulloch, who is reported among the killed in the
battle of the Ozark Mountains, was a Tennessean by Birth, and a vagabond and a
traitor by nature. He went to Texas in
1835 with Crocket, fought the Mexicans, and afterwards the Indians; settled in
Texas and took part in the border quarrels between Texas and Mexico. The first act of treason for which he became
know was committed in December, 1842, when he made part of a band which
attacked the town of Mier. The Texans
were in turn threatened by a vastly superior force under Ampudia; and in order
to secure their retreat Fisher, the Col. in Command, sent McCulloch with a
detachment to gather horses and mules from the surrounding country and bring
them into the town. – McCulloch got the horses, but persuaded the men under his
command to desert and leave their companies to their fate, which was decimation
by the Mexicans and long imprisonment and suffering by the survivors.
McCulloch explained away the act of treachery, was forgiven,
and was afterwards a member of the Texan Legislature, a ranger and a spy in the
Mexican war; in 1855 a Marshal of Texas, and since the outbreak of this
rebellion a traitor to his country. He was
a dashing partisan leader, but not a good General.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 3
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