Henry Eustace McCulloch: Difference between revisions

 

==Early life==

McCulloch was born in [[Rutherford County, Tennessee]], one of twelve children of Alexander McCulloch and Frances Fisher LeNoir. Henry's father Alexander, a [[Yale University]] graduate, was a descendant of Captain [[Nicolas Martiau]], the French Huguenot settler of Jamestown, Virginia and ancestor of President George Washington. Alexander was also an officer on Brig. Gen. [[John Coffee]]'s staff during the [[Creek War]] of 1813 and 1814 in [[Alabama]]; his mother was a daughter of a prominent [[Virginia]] [[Planter (American South)|planter]]. The family had been wealthy, politically influential, and socially prominent in [[North Carolina]] before the [[American Revolution]], but Alexander McCulloch had wasted much of his inheritance and was unable even to educate his sons. (Two of Henry McCulloch's older brothers briefly attended a school in Tennessee taught by their neighbor, [[Sam Houston]].) After several moves, the family settled at [[Dyersburg, Tennessee|Dyersburg]], where one of their closest neighbors was [[Davy Crockett]]—a great influence on both McCulloch and his older brother, [[Benjamin McCulloch|Ben McCulloch]], who also would become a Confederate brigadier general.