Sam McCulloch, Jr. fought in many capacities for freedoms modern Texans take for granted. Born in South Carolina, he was reared in Alabama with his sisters Jane, Harriet, and Mahaly by his father, Sam McCulloch, Sr., before the family moved to Mexican Texas and settled on the Lavaca River in present-day Jackson County, where they were considered free blacks. After Texian soldiers opened the Texas Revolution at Gonzales on October 2, 1835, McCulloch joined the Matagorda Volunteer Company as a private under George M. Collinsworth on October 5. On October 9, while storming the Mexican officers' quarters at Goliad, he became the first casualty of the revolution for the Republic of Texas' independence when a musket ball shattered his right shoulder and crippled him for life. He was taken home to Jackson County, remained there until fleeing the advancing Mexican Army during the Runaway Scrape in April 1836, and on July 8, 1836, more than two months after Texas' victory at San Jacinto, a Texas Army surgeon, possibly Dr. Nicholas D. Labadie, removed the musket ball from his shoulder. Because people of African or Native American descent were denied citizenship in the new Republic of Texas, McCulloch petitioned the Texas Congress in 1837 for citizenship and the right to own land; although that petition was effectively rejected, Sam Houston signed a law on June 5, 1837, granting permanent residence rights to free blacks living in Texas at the time of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and on December 18, 1837, an act of Congress made him eligible for one league, or 4,428 acres, as a person permanently disabled in Texas service. On August 11, 1837, he married Mary Lorena Vess, the white daughter of colonist Jonathan Vess, in a marriage forbidden by law but never prosecuted, and they had five children: Samuel McCulloch, III, William Robert McCulloch, Lewis Clark McCulloch, Andrew Jackson McCulloch, and Mary McCulloch; Mary Lorena Vess died on November 8, 1847, shortly after giving birth to twins Andrew and Mary. After the Ashworth Act of February 5, 1840, required free blacks to leave Texas within two years or be sold into slavery, McCulloch petitioned for an exemption for himself, his three sisters, and a relative named Uldy, and a relief bill passed on November 10, 1840. He continued serving Texas by fighting Comanches at the Battle of Plum Creek on August 11-12, 1840, and by performing espionage under Col. Clark Owen when Mexican General Adrian Woll invaded San Antonio in 1842. In 1852 he moved with his family to present-day Von Ormy in Bexar County, where he farmed and raised cattle, and he died there on November 2, 1893, later being buried in McCulloch Cemetery in San Antonio.