MAJOR BENJAMIN MCCULLOCH.

AJOR MCCULLOCH was born in Rutherford county, Tennessee, in the year 1814. His father had seen service under General Jackson in the Creek war. He removed for a time to Alabama, but Benjamin remained in Tennessee at school for some years, when his father returned to the western part of that state, and Benjamin lived with him employed in hunting until he was twenty-one.

In the campaign on the Rio Grande, he told an anecdote of this portion of his life, which we give as we find it in Reid's Scouting Expeditions. "While speaking about the course we had travelled, and referring to our compass, Captain McCulloch related the following anecdote:

Anecdote.

"An old woodman," said he, "seldom wants a compass so long as he can see the sun, and even when it is cloudy you can always tell where the sun is, by a slight shadow from objects, be it ever so obscured. I recollect once I went a hunting with a gentleman and my father, and crossing the river in a boat, we hauled it up on the shore, and put out into the woods. Well, we did not meet with much luck, and so we put back for the boat. It was a cloudy day and the gentleman carried a pocket compass with him, and pointed out our course back. We followed the direction for some time, but could see no river. That we were lost was now beyond a doubt. And father becoming tired of following the course of the gentleman's compass, determined to be guided by it no longer.

"Well, it is strange,' said the gentleman, 'the compass can't be wrong!'

"D-n the compass,' said father, my boy Ben is worth all the compasses I ever saw ;' and, turning to me, said, if you don't take us right straight to that boat,

Ben, you

way

shall never go on another hunt.' "So I took a straight shoot, just by guessing the the woods ran, and brought them to the boat, sure enough! As we were stepping in the boat, the gentleman said, with a laugh—

"Well, that boy Ben of yours, Mr. McCulloch, is a perfect magnetic needle. He will make as great a geographer as his celebrated namesake.""

He would kill eighty bears in a winter. When he became of age, he set out for St. Louis, in order to join in an expedition for the Rocky mountains. In 1835, he wished to join Colonel David Crockett, in an expe

His personal appearance.

dition that was about to take part in the Texas revolution, but the colonel went sooner than McCulloch had supposed, and he set out to follow him. At the river Brazos, he was taken very ill and did not recover until after the fall of the Alamo. He went on, however, and was made captain of a gun in the army of Texas under General Houston, which he served with effect in the memorable battle of San Jacinto. He served in all the border warfare of the day, and was present at the taking of Mier, though he returned home directly afterwards, and thus escaped the fate of his comrades.

In the Mexican war he has been as useful as any man in the American army; his scouting expeditions being among the boldest achievements of the war. "He is a man of delicate frame, five feet ten inches in height, with light hair and complexion. His features are rather regular and pleasing, though from long exposure on the frontier they have a weather-beaten cast. His quick and bright blue eye, with a mouth of thin compressed lips, indicate the cool, calculating, as well as the brave and daring energy of the man." This is the description given of him by S. C. Reid, Esq., in his account of the gallant captain's scouting expeditions.

We quote Mr. Reid's account of some incidents in the cavalry fight with which General Worth commenced the battle at Monterey, as it illustrates the Rangers' desperate yet chivalric method of fighting. "Armstrong, one of our company, was unhorsed by a lancer, having received two wounds; yet on foot, with sword in hand he defended himself against two of the enemy. He killed one, when an Irishman from the artillery battalion discovered his situation, and saying