Camp Site Of the Texas Army
Hempstead, Waller County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Five miles to the southeast to the camp site of the Texas Army March 31 to April 13, 1836 when it crossed the Brazos on the steamboat Yellow Stone and began its march toward Harrisburg.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the anxious spring of 1836, as Santa Anna's forces pressed eastward, the Texas Army camped near this point from March 31 to April 13. Here the troops crossed the rain-swollen Brazos River aboard the steamboat Yellow Stone before turning toward Harrisburg. Within weeks that march would end in the stunning victory at San Jacinto that secured Texas independence.
Why it matters
This quiet river crossing was a way station on the road to San Jacinto, marking one of the desperate movements that decided the fate of the Texas Revolution.
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Related events
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Captain Alfred H. Wyly
Hempsted, TX
Alfred H. Wyly led a volunteer company at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, the eighteen-minute rout that secured Texas independence from Mexico. Volunteer captains like Wyly raised and commanded the citizen-soldiers who made up Sam Houston's army, ordinary settlers who left their farms to fight. Wyly lived on in the young republic and state until his death at Hempstead in 1867.
In This Vicinity_Plantation of Charles Donoho
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In the tense weeks after the fall of the Alamo and Goliad, Sam Houston's Texas Army was in full retreat across the Brazos country during the so-called 'Runaway Scrape.' On April 14–15, 1836, the army camped near here on Charles Donoho's plantation before marching toward Harrisburg — the final maneuver that would end days later in the decisive victory at San Jacinto. This unassuming farmland briefly held the fate of an independent Texas.
Gen. George and Libbie Custer Campsite
Hempstead vicinity, TX
In the uneasy months after the Civil War, the U.S. sent a large force into Texas to restore order and to counter French-backed forces in Mexico. From August to October 1865, George Armstrong Custer and his cavalry — with his wife Elizabeth, "Libbie" — camped on the Liendo plantation of Leonard Groce, heir to "Old 300" cotton baron Jared Groce. Custer's insistence that his troops respect Texans and their property helped keep relations with local families cordial.
Site of Groce's Ferry
Hempstead vicinity, TX
Jared E. Groce, one of Stephen F. Austin's earliest and wealthiest colonists, opened this ferry across the Brazos in 1822, giving travelers a crossing on a river that has since wandered from its old bed. In the spring of 1836, as Santa Anna's army pressed east, Sam Houston's Texas Army encamped near here from late March into April, resting and drilling before the campaign that ended at San Jacinto. The State of Texas marked the spot in its 1936 centennial.