Ben McCulloch was a distinguished ranger, frontier surveyor, Indian fighter, lawman, statesman, and military commander. Born in Tennessee, he followed David Crockett to Texas to fight in the War for Independence and commanded one of the “Twin Sisters” cannon at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. He served in the congress of the Republic of Texas. In 1846, during the war with Mexico, he led a Ranger company on a successful scouting mission 100 miles behind enemy lines. During the 1849 California Gold Rush he was sheriff of Sacramento County. After returning home in 1852, he became U.S. Marshall for the Eastern District of Texas. He led Texas volunteers in San Antonio on Feb. 16, 1861, when the U.S. arsenal was surrounded and its surrender demanded, an encounter in a charged atmosphere that could have become the first armed conflict of the Civil War, although it ended without a shot being fired and with U.S. troops leaving the state. President Jefferson Davis offered him the first general staff commission in the Civil War. Made a brigadier general on May 14, 1861, he had charge of troops in Arkansas and Indian Territory, commanded Confederate forces in the victory at Wilson Creek, Missouri, in 1861, and was killed at the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas.