On the heels of a political struggle over his appointment, Shumard moved back to Missouri during the Civil War and resumed his medical career there.

Shumard was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and his parents, John and Ann Catherine (née Getz), moved to Cincinnati when he was young.

[2] His younger brother, George Getz Shumard, who was considered a better geologist, assisted Benjamin with the Texas surveys,[3] and later became Surgeon General of Ohio.

After visiting Philadelphia and New York, he purchased instruments and chemicals, packed up his St. Louis specimens and library, and arrived in Austin at the end of October.

He also reported "an extensive coal formation" in northern Texas, in an area over 4,000 square miles, which he predicted "will exercise a most important influence on [the state's] welfare and prosperity."

Besides coal, the survey reported on "vast accumulations of iron ore", limestone, lead, copper, gypsum, silver, and shale.

In a tangential comment, decades before the Texas oil boom, Shumard noted "the occurrence of Petroleum, which has been observed at several locations in the State".

[12] Shumard, in turn, later wrote that Buckley was "utterly incompetent", had taken his "precious little" knowledge of geology from him, "and that anything he may write would not command the respect of any man".