Camp Ben McCulloch No. 946, United Confederate Veterans
Driftwood, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Hays County Confederate veterans and their families gathered for a reunion in the summer of 1896 and formally organized the Camp Ben McCulloch Chapter of the United Confederate Veterans. The gathering took place near this site at the Martin Spring and campsite on Onion Creek. The reunion grounds were purchased by the organization in 1904 and have continued as the site of the annual reunion with the exception of one year during World War I. The first commander of Camp Ben McCulloch was Capt. Martin Luther Reed. Other officers elected at the first meeting were Jacob C. Quick, W. M. Weaver, W. W. Davis, W. T. Chapman, Dr. J. M. Pound, and Santa Anna Cruze. The camp was named for Confederate General Ben McCulloch, also a veteran of the Texas Revolution, who died in the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, in 1862. The reunion grounds and other responsibilities were transferred to the care of the Confederate Sons after Burl Nash, the last veteran in the county died in 1947 at age 108. The Sons in turn deeded the camp to the grandsons and other descendants of the Confederate veterans. Reunions continue to be held, illustrating the ongoing impact of the Civil War on Texas history. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the summer of 1896, Hays County Confederate veterans and their families gathered at Martin Spring on Onion Creek and organized a chapter of the United Confederate Veterans, naming it for General Ben McCulloch, who fell at the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862. The group bought the reunion grounds in 1904, and the annual gathering has continued ever since, missing only one year during World War I. As the last veterans died, the site passed to their sons, grandsons, and descendants, who keep the reunions alive.
Why it matters
The camp shows how the memory of the Civil War was deliberately preserved and passed down across generations, shaping Southern identity long after the guns fell silent.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1896, the Civil War had been over for more than thirty years, but for the men who fought it the war was never far away. Across the South, aging Confederate veterans were organizing into local camps, gathering to remember comrades, swap stories, and support one another as they grew old.
Those local camps were affiliated with the United Confederate Veterans, a national organization founded in 1889. Hundreds of camps formed across the former Confederacy, and Texas, with its large population of veterans who had moved west after the war, had many of them. Reunions became major social events, sometimes lasting several days, with families camping on the grounds.
These gatherings also served another purpose. In the decades after Reconstruction, white Southerners actively shaped how the war would be remembered, often in a way that emphasized honor and sacrifice and played down slavery as its cause. Historians today study these reunions both as genuine expressions of grief and fellowship and as part of that wider campaign of memory.
People & events
In the summer of 1896, Hays County veterans and their families came together at Martin Spring on Onion Creek, near where this marker stands, and formally organized their camp. Their first commander was Captain Martin Luther Reed, and the first slate of officers included Jacob C. Quick, W. M. Weaver, W. W. Davis, W. T. Chapman, Dr. J. M. Pound, and Santa Anna Cruze, a group of neighbors who had all lived through the war.
They named their camp for Ben McCulloch, a figure with deep Texas roots. McCulloch fought in the Texas Revolution and later became well known as a Texas Ranger before serving as a Confederate general. He was killed at the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas in 1862, a hard defeat that helped keep Missouri in Union hands. For Texas veterans, his name tied their war to the earlier struggle for Texas independence.
In 1904 the organization bought the reunion grounds, and the annual gathering became a fixture, interrupted only once during World War I. The veterans grew fewer each year. When Burl Nash, the last Confederate veteran in the county, died in 1947 at the remarkable age of 108, the grounds passed to the Confederate Sons and later to grandsons and other descendants, who have continued the reunions.
Its place in the American story
Camp Ben McCulloch is a living example of how Americans remember war, and of how those memories are passed from one generation to the next. Few places in the country have hosted the same commemorative gathering on the same ground for well over a century.
The camp also belongs to a much larger and much-debated story. The organizations of Confederate veterans and their descendants played a major role in building the 'Lost Cause' view of the Civil War, which shaped Southern monuments, textbooks, and public memory for generations. That view has been widely challenged by historians, and how to remember the Confederacy remains a contested question in American public life today.
Reading this site with both ideas in mind is part of its value. It shows the very human desire of veterans and families to honor the dead and stay connected, and it also shows how commemoration can shape a nation's understanding of its own past. As the marker itself notes, the Civil War's impact on Texas did not end in 1865.
If you visit
The reunion grounds sit in the Hill Country near Driftwood, along Onion Creek, a landscape of limestone, live oaks, and spring-fed water. It is easy to see why families chose this spot for summer camping more than a century ago: shade and water were precious in a Texas July.
Remember that the grounds are maintained by a private descendants' organization, so respect any posted signs and boundaries, and check locally before planning to walk the property. The marker itself gives you the core story, and the setting does the rest.
This stop fits naturally into a Hill Country drive, an area full of small towns, winding creek roads, and other historic sites. Consider it alongside other Civil War and Texas Revolution sites in the region to see how Texans across different eras chose to remember their wars.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Ben McCulloch
- · Martin Luther Reed
- · Burl Nash
Related events
- · Battle of Pea Ridge
Themes & tags
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