Blũcher who led German forces at the Battle of Waterloo. (In Texas records the spelling is usually anglicized.) He was born in Poglow, Mechlenburg, Germany, studied engineering, learned four modern languages plus Latin in addition to his native German, and served in the Prussian army before immigrating. In 1845 he was at New Braunfels, Texas where he helped draft a treaty with the Comanche before going to Mexico. In 1849 he came to Corpus Christi where he surveyed school lands for Nueces County, helped draft the City Charter and inserted the amendment requiring a ship channel to Aransas Pass. He selected the site for and built a water tank to deal with droughts (drafting an ordinance to keep hogs out of it), and in 1853 surveyed the military road to Eagle Pass, Texas. In the Confederate army he planned and oversaw the defense of Corpus Christi, which endured artillery barrages by Federal gunboats. He worked in Mexico in 1865, returning in 1873; in 1875 he surveyed Zapata County. On a trip to Germany in 1849 he married Maria Augusta Emme (1827–1893), an aristocratic and wealthy girl who accompanied him to become a pioneer woman, albeit of the local elite. She taught classes in music and Spanish and bore six children. Her letters and other writings, edited by Bruce S. Cheeseman, were published in 2002 as Maria von Blũcher's Corpus Christi. Benjamin Franklin Neal (179? - 1873) was the first mayor of Corpus Christi. Born in Virginia between 1792 and 1796 and trained as a lawyer, he arrived in Refugio County in 1838. In 1839 he sided with the Mexican Federalists whom he helped conquer Monterrey. He was Chief Justice of Refugio County 1840 to 1845, where he bought the San Luis Advocate, moving it to Galveston in 1841 and bought the Galveston News. In 1846 he moved to Corpus Christi, founding and publishing the Nueces Valley 1852 to 1870. About 1850 he married Eleanor Rebecca O'Neil, who bore one child and died of yellow fever in 1852, after which he married Azubah Haines. He practiced law and was elected mayor of the newly incorporated city in 1852 and 1855. From 1859 to 1860 he prospected gold in what's now Arizona and returned wealthy in time to command the local artillery battery as a Confederate major and to serve as a judge. During Reconstruction he was deposed, restored, and deposed from