Soldier's Waterhole
Brady vicinity, McCulloch County, Texas
Marker Inscription
U.S. soldiers under command of Robert E. Lee used this site while traveling the nearby military road and patroling this area for Indians. West bound immigrants also camped here prior to the Civil War; Here 27 Indians surprised and massacred 18 men, women and children burned their wagons and stole their horses. 1850; 1869. ON THE BACK SIDE OF THE MONUMENT: Ancient Indian Camp Ground; Erected in 1964 by McCulloch County Historical Society
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This waterhole on an old military road served U.S. soldiers — including troops under Robert E. Lee — who patrolled for raiders in the 1850s, as well as westbound emigrants camping before the Civil War. The marker records a grim toll: in 1850 a party of eighteen men, women, and children was attacked here, their wagons burned and horses stolen. Long before, the same reliable water had drawn Native peoples to what was noted as an ancient Indian campground.
Why it matters
Watering places like this were lifelines and flashpoints on the frontier, where the paths of soldiers, settlers, and Native nations repeatedly crossed.
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Related people
- · Robert E. Lee
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mason County
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Onion Creek Indian Fight
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One night in 1866, five men from Richland Springs tracked stolen horses to an Indian camp near this spot and recovered them in a sharp encounter. A metal arrow struck a Mr. Lafferty and slid halfway around his skull; it was cut out with a pocketknife, and remarkably he survived. The grave of an Indian killed in the fight lies about thirty yards to the north.
McCulloch County
Brady, TX
Created in 1856 from the vast Bexar territory, McCulloch County honors Ben McCulloch, a Texas hero who fought in the Revolution and in the Indian, Mexican, and Civil Wars. Frontier and Indian dangers slowed settlement so severely that two decades passed before the buffalo were hunted off and ranches took hold, and the county finally organized in 1876 with Brady as its seat. It holds the geographic center of Texas and the site of the 1831 Calf Creek fight, where James Bowie battled a much larger Indian force.
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