Confederatevets.com

Death has reaped a rich harvest of late among the Veteran's most devoted friends, and these vacant places are eloquent of loss. The passing of Maj. Ben McCulloch Hord, of Nashville, on June 14, has taken the closest associate of the late editor ot the Veteran, their friendship and business association dating from the seventies, when they published an agricultural paper in Nashville; and for a time Major Hord was connected with the editorial work of the Veteran. Only death severed this friendship of their mature years.

Benjamin McCulloch Hord was born in Rutherford County, Tenn., March 4, 1842, the son of Thomas E. and Mary McCulloch Hord. His mother was a sister of Gen. Ben McCulloch, whose untimely death at the battle of Elkhorn, or Pea Ridge, Ark., meant a great loss to the Confederacy. His grandfather, Maj. Alexander McCulloch, was a veteran of the war of 1812-15, having taken part in the battle of New Orleans and serving as aid de camp to General Coffee in the campaign against the Creek Indians.

When the war came on in 1861, B. M. Hord was a student at the University of North Carolina, and, without waiting for his native Tennessee to secede, he was among the first to enlist in a company organized in the little village of Chapel Hill, N. C., by Capt. Dick Ashe, a Mexican War veteran. This company became part of the 1st North Carolina Infantry (called the 1st North Carolina Volunteers), commanded by Col. D. H. Hill, later a lieutenant general in the Confederate army, which was sent to Yorktown, Va., being the first Confederate troops on the Peninsula. In the battle of Big Bethel young Hord was wounded, and he was afterwards transferred to the 1st Arkansas Cavalry (Dobbins's Regiment), Walker's Brigade, expecting to be with his uncle, General McCulloch. He was captured in Arkansas in 1863, and sent to prison in St. Louis, but he was accused of being on a plot of the prisoners to escape and was transferred to Rock Island, four hundered miles above. He was held there until January, 1865, then sent down to New Orleans and exchanged at the mouth of Red River in the latter part of February. He was paroled with the forces of Gen. E. Kirby Smith, in May, 1865, at Shreveport, La.

It is of interest to note that in 1911, his Alma Mater, the University of North Carolina, called upon all the living members of the class of 1861 to come and receive the diplomas which would have been bestowed upon them forty-eight years before but for the interruption of war. Major Hord attended the commencement exercises and with great ceremony was awarded his diploma.

For some years after the war Major Hord was in the hardware business in Chattanooga, then he became interested in the publications of the Rural Sun, an agricultiral paper, at Nashville, with the late S. A. Cunningham. His contributions to the paper were of exceptional worth, and in addition he wrote many short stories of special interest and literary merit, indicating an ability that needed only application to achieve high reputation as a writer. Some of his war experiences were contributed to the Veteran, and in them his humor lightens the horrors recounted of battle and prison. His experience as a prisoner at Rock Island was a vivid narrative.

Under Gov. Robert L. Taylor, Major Hord was Commissioner of Agriculture for Tennessee from 1887 to 1891, and his administration of the office was characterized by an active and progressive spirit. He was always interested in the devlopment of agriculture and the breeding of fine stock, in which he was recognized as an authority.

Major Hord was a man of warm impulses, and his genial personality won him many friends. His devotion to the Confederate cause never wavered, and he was ever interested the activities of his former comrades in arms, being a longtime member of the Frank Cheatham Bivouc at Nashville. His domestic life was one of happiness. He was married in November, 1868, to Miss Anne Gray Warner, of Chattanooga, who survives him with their four daughters.

After services in Nashville, his body was taken to Murfreesboro and there laid to rest with loved ones gone before.