MCCULLOCH, FRANCES FISHER LENOIR (1780~1866) Frances Fisher LeNoir McCulloch, mother of Civil War Generals, Benjamin and Henry Eustace McCulloch, was born in Dinwiddie, Virginia on April 11, 1780, the daughter of Fisher LeNoir, a prominent planter. On September 11, 1799, Miss LeNoir married Alexander McCulloch, a Yale graduate, who was born in Virginia and raised in North Carolina. Together, they had twelve children, while living in Rutherford County, Tennessee.
During the Creek-Indian War and War of 1812, Alexander attained the rank of Major, and served as aide-de-camp to General John Coffee. During her husband's absences, Mrs. McCulloch managed the family's plantation. After Alexander's death in 1846, Mrs. McCulloch followed her two children, Benjamin and Henry, to Texas, where she used the money from her husband's will to purchase a small farm in present day Ellis County. The remainder of her life was spent running the farm with her son, John.
Mrs. McCulloch is credited with being the only woman to have two sons obtain the rank of brigadier general in the same war.
On May 10, 1866, Mrs. McCulloch died and was laid to rest on the family farm. In 1936, her grave was re-discovered, and the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy began the process of having her body moved to the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
Finally, on May 25, 1938, in a ceremony where Lieutenant Governor Walter F. Woodul gave her eulogy, Mrs. McCulloch's body was laid to rest, next to her son, Ben, who died during the Battle of Pea Ridge. State money was appropriated for a dual headstone for the two McCulloch's.
Information provided by McCulloch family member, Kathy Parker; "Graves of Texas Pioneers Found in Plum Thicket," The Dallas Morning News, August 26, 1936; "Mother of Texas Generals Will Be Buried in Austin," The Dallas Morning News, September 19, 1937;"Famed Early Texas Mother Rests in Neglected Grave," Fort-Worth Star Telegram, date not known; and "Body of Mother of Noted Texas Men Re-Interred in State Plot," San Angelo Standard-Times, May 26, 1938.
