The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 58, July 1954 - April, 1955 Page: 3
650 p. : ill., maps (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Ben McCulloch: A Big Captain
ness to serve and his increasing skill in frontier warfare soon
earned him the reputation of being one of the outstanding Indian
fighters on the frontier. From 1838 until the Mexican War he
was almost constantly in the saddle against Indians and Mexicans,
serving as minuteman, volunteer, or Texas Ranger as the occasion
demanded.5
The first skirmish with the Indians in which Ben McCulloch
was known to have been the leader of a band of Rangers was the
fight on Peach Creek in March, 1839. Using the opportunity
afforded him by Colonel John H. Moore's campaign against the
Comanches on the San Saba River early in 1839, McCulloch
decided to organize an expedition against the hostile Indians
who had been raiding the Gonzales vicinity. On the second day
out, when near the headwaters of Peach Creek, the McCulloch
party discovered fresh tracks of foot warriors heading in the direc-
tion of Gonzales. The trail was followed rapidly, and in a few
hours the hostiles were sighted. Four of the enemy warriors were
killed in the fight that followed; thus a possible surprise attack
on the Gonzales community was prevented.6
Less than a month later McCulloch joined with Captain
Mathew Caldwell to give chase to the Mexican, Vicente C6rdova,
who had conducted an unsuccessful revolt in East Texas. The
retreating C6rdova was followed below San Antonio before the
pursuit was finally given up.' McCulloch returned to Gonzales
to his varied life of surveyor and legislator, but the next year he
was to participate in the Plum Creek Fight, one of the major In-
dian battles in the history of the Republic.
The battle of Plum Creek, climaxing almost a year of numer-
ous raids and depredations, was the aftermath of the Linnville raid
in August, 1840, in which about one thousand warriors partici-
pated. The immediate cause of the raid was the Council House
Fight in San Antonio. A group of Comanche chieftains had come
to make peace and exchange prisoners. The preliminary agree-
5Rose, McCulloch, 44-45; William S. Speer (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the New
West (2 parts; Marshall, 1881), Part I, 295; A. J. Sowell, Early Settlers and Indian
Fighters (Austin, 1900), 415-416.
eMcCulloch's party included about twenty-five friendly Tonkawa Indians and five
white men. One of these men was Henry E. McCulloch, his brother, who joined
him in 1838. Rose, McCulloch, 46-48; John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers
of Texas (Austin, n.d.), 73-74-
I7bid., 63.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 58, July 1954 - April, 1955, periodical, 1955; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101158/m1/21/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.