Benjamin McCulloch - War With Mexico

War With Mexico

In 1845, McCulloch was elected from Gonzales County to the first Texas state legislature following its entry into the union. In the spring of 1846, a law was passed appointing him Major General in command of all Texas militia west of the Colorado River. That same year, with the outbreak of the war with Mexico, he raised a company of Rangers that became Company A of Col. Hays's 1st Regiment of Texas Mounted Volunteers, who were known for their ability to regularly travel 250 miles in ten days or less. He subsequently was named chief of scouts under Gen. Zachary Taylor, with the rank of major, and became known nationwide for his daring exploits in northern Mexico. (His company of scouts included George Wilkins Kendall, editor of the New Orleans Picayune.) By this time, McCulloch was fluent in Spanish and his woodsman's skills enabled him to slip back and forth across the lines undetected—more than once penetrating to within a mile of Santa Anna's own tent.

McCulloch led his scouting company as mounted infantry at the Battle of Monterrey and his expert reconnaissance work preceding the Battle of Buena Vista probably saved Taylor's army from disaster. After Buena Vista he was promoted to the rank of major of U.S. Volunteers.

At the war's end, McCulloch scouted for Maj. Gen. David E. Twiggs, but joined the rush to the California gold fields in 1849. While he never struck gold, he was elected sheriff of Sacramento. (His old commander, Col. 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 the appointment never went through. In 1852, President Franklin Pierce promised him command of the U.S. Second Cavalry, but Secretary of War Jefferson Davis gave it instead to Albert Sidney Johnston.

McCulloch was appointed U.S. marshal for the Eastern District of Texas in 1852, serving throughout the Pierce and 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, D.C. In the aftermath of the Utah War, in 1858 he was one of the peace commissioners sent to negotiate with Brigham Young in Utah (the other being former Gov. Lazarus W. Powell of Kentucky).