Frisby Henderson McCullough (March 8, 1828 – August 8, 1862) was a Confederate army soldier in the American Civil War, executed on the orders of Union Colonel (later a general) John McNeil after the Battle of Kirksville.

He took part in the Battle of Lexington, before being sent by General Sterling Price to recruit in northeastern Missouri with Joseph C. Porter in the spring of 1862.

[1][2] During the guerrilla campaign in Northeast Missouri in the summer of 1862, McCullough sought unsuccessfully to persuade Colonel Porter to restrict himself to recruiting and not engage the Union forces.

According to one of his men, Joseph Mudd (see references), this was because McCullough feared the retaliation Federal forces would inflict upon civilian Southern sympathizers.

The observation may accurately reflect McCullough's character, which is universally praised, but it is colored by the author's Confederate perspective.

Prior to the engagement at Kirksville, McCullough again urged Porter to decline battle and send his raw recruits to Arkansas for training and equipping behind Confederate lines.

He was accused of lacking a military commission, of fighting on his own authority — that is, of being a bushwhacker— and of persuading parolees to return to Confederate service.

He had also previously held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Missouri State Guard, but that commission had long since expired.

Honorable as he was, however, as a gentleman, he justly merited the fate he received, as a rebel, in unlawful and barbarous warfare against the authorities of the land.

Had he engaged in the service of his country with the zeal he evinced against it, he would doubtless have risen to a high position of honor and renown."

While there may have been some technicalities as to McCullough's commission, he was in fact wearing a Confederate officer's uniform when captured and was acting under orders from General Price.