Joseph F. Johnston Reunion Grounds
Mexia, Limestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(4 mi. west) (Camp No. 94, United Confederate Veterans) Established 1889, in era when Texas looked to Civil War veterans for state leadership. One of numerous parks on river banks or other favored sites that drew large, popular annual encampments. Statesmen came to make speeches. There were orations by old soldiers; memorial programs, reviews, concerts. In 1892 the camp purchased this 70-acre tract; sold lots to shareholders; named streets for Lee, Jackson, other heroes. During week of full moon each August, members came to encampments; set up housekeeping in tents, shacks or brush arbors; entertained, feasting on fried chicken, barbecue, Brunswick stew, sweet potato pie, watermelons. Special trains were run for years from Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston. In peak years 5,000 people assembled here. Until 1940, the dawn and dusk salutes shot by Old Valverde, Civil War cannon, were heard far into neighboring counties. Besides giving honors to Confederate veterans, the encampments were occasions for family reunions. After the Mexia oil boom began in 1920, Col. A. E. Humphreys, a leader in petroleum development, built club facilities and promoted use of the park. The reunion grounds still are dedicated to the memory of the late Confederate veterans. (1965) This marker was relocated here to the actual site of the Confederate Reunion Grounds by the Limestone County Historical Commission, 2003.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established in 1889, this 70-acre camp of the United Confederate Veterans hosted enormous annual reunions in an era when Texas still looked to its Civil War veterans for leadership. Each August, under the full moon, thousands gathered in tents and brush arbors for speeches, memorial programs, and feasts of barbecue and sweet potato pie, with special trains running from Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston; at its peak the encampment drew 5,000 people, and the Civil War cannon "Old Valverde" fired dawn and dusk salutes until 1940. The grounds remain dedicated to the memory of the Confederate veterans who once camped here.
Why it matters
These reunion grounds capture the powerful "Lost Cause" memorial culture through which the postwar South honored, mythologized, and organized around its Confederate veterans.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
A generation after the Civil War, Confederate veterans held a special place in Texas public life. The marker describes an era when Texas looked to its old soldiers for state leadership, and in the 1880s and 1890s many of the state's politicians had served in the Confederate army. Veterans' groups formed across the South, and in 1889 the United Confederate Veterans was organized as a region-wide association with local camps in town after town.
This camp, near Mexia in Limestone County, was founded that same year. Across Texas, camps like it bought parks along riverbanks or at other favored spots and held big annual encampments. In a rural world without radio or movies, these gatherings were some of the largest social events of the year.
The reunions were also part of a broader movement historians call the Lost Cause. Southern writers, speakers and veterans' groups recast the Confederacy as a noble, heroic struggle and played down slavery's central role in the war. The speeches, memorials and street names honoring Confederate leaders that the marker describes were part of how that interpretation spread, and that is important context for anyone visiting today.
People & events
The camp was organized in 1889 as Camp No. 94 of the United Confederate Veterans, named for Joseph F. Johnston. In 1892 the camp bought a seventy-acre tract, sold lots to shareholders and named its streets after Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and other Confederate heroes. It became a small seasonal town that came to life once a year.
That once-a-year moment came in August, during the week of the full moon. Families arrived and set up housekeeping in tents, shacks and brush arbors. They heard speeches from statesmen and orations from old soldiers, attended memorial programs, watched reviews and enjoyed concerts. And they ate: fried chicken, barbecue, Brunswick stew, sweet potato pie and watermelon. Special trains ran from Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston for years, and in peak years about 5,000 people gathered here. For many families, it doubled as a family reunion.
The gathering's signature sound came from Old Valverde, a Civil War cannon whose dawn and dusk salutes could be heard far into neighboring counties until 1940. The gun is associated with the 1862 Battle of Valverde in New Mexico, where Texas Confederates captured artillery. Later, after the Mexia oil boom began in 1920, Col. A. E. Humphreys, a leading figure in local oil development, built club facilities and promoted the park. Oil money helped keep the grounds in use as the veterans themselves grew old and passed away.
Its place in the American story
Reunion grounds like this one help explain how the Civil War was remembered, and argued over, in the decades after the fighting stopped. The encampments honored real men who had endured real hardship, and for families they were times of food, music and connection. But they also helped spread the Lost Cause version of history, which shaped Southern politics, monuments and schoolbooks well into the twentieth century and shaped how many Americans understood the war.
That memory had consequences. The same era that built Confederate reunion grounds also saw the rise of segregation and the disenfranchisement of Black Southerners. Many historians see these as connected: a celebratory story of the Confederacy made it easier to defend the social order that followed Reconstruction.
Today the site is a valuable place to see historical memory being made. It shows how communities picked their heroes, staged their past and passed those stories down. Visiting it with that awareness turns a picnic ground into a lesson about how Americans remember, and sometimes rewrite, their history.
If you visit
The reunion grounds lie a few miles west of Mexia along the river, and the marker itself was moved in 2003 by the Limestone County Historical Commission to the actual site of the grounds. The setting is the draw: shady river bottomland of the kind that made these spots favorites for summer gatherings. Picture tents and brush arbors under the trees and families arriving by special train for a week under the August moon.
The site is preserved today as a state historic site. Check current information before you go rather than counting on particular facilities. As you walk the grounds, think about what was being celebrated here and what was left out. This is one of the most direct places in Texas to see how Civil War memory was built.
The area pairs well with other stops around Mexia and Limestone County, including the story of the 1920s oil boom that transformed the town. Together they show two very different chapters of Texas history: one about memory and the old war, and one about the oil rush that pulled the region into the modern age.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Robert M. Love
Tehuacana, TX
Robert M. Love was among the armed men who helped seat the 14th Texas Legislature in 1873 during the tense standoff when outgoing Governor E. J. Davis contested Richard Coke's election. A Confederate veteran of Ross' brigade, he went on to serve as Limestone County deputy sheriff and sheriff, president of the Texas Sheriff's Association, U.S. Marshal, and finally state comptroller from 1901 to 1903. His career threads through some of the sharpest political conflicts of Reconstruction-era Texas.
Cobb Cemetery
Thornton, TX
Brinkley Davis brought his family from Indiana in 1833 and received a Mexican land grant of some 4,500 acres in 1835, giving the surrounding 'Davis Prairie' its name. His daughter Mary Ellen married Alabama-born Pinckney Cobb in 1845, and the family cemetery was established on Cobb land in the 1850s, with Davis's 1852 grave the earliest marked. Its stones tell hard pioneer truths — many infants and children — alongside veterans of the Santa Fe Expedition, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War.
Mrs. Mary E. Reeves
Lost Prairie, TX
Born in Georgia in 1828, Mary Ellephan Hawkins married William Jay Reeves in Alabama in 1847 and moved with their young children to Texas around 1855. When her husband went off to serve in Company F of the 15th Texas Cavalry during the Civil War, she held the family together at home, shouldering the hard work of a wartime household. Her descendants went on to become physicians, lawyers, bankers, and citizens in many walks of life.
Allan Jefferson Rogers
Lost Prairie, TX
Allan Jefferson Rogers, born in Alabama, came to Texas in 1856 and served as a sergeant in Company K of Bass's Regiment, the 20th Texas Cavalry, during the Civil War. His unit campaigned across Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Indian Territory in the war's Trans-Mississippi theater, the vast and often overlooked western front of the conflict. This marker preserves the memory of one of the many Texans who fought far from the war's famous eastern battlefields.