W.L. Moody Confederate Reunion Grounds
Fairfield, Freestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Freestone County W.l. Moody reunion grounds have been used for reunions, celebrations and remembrance of U.S. war veterans since 1891. The grounds were named after Col. William Lewis Moody, who organized Co. G of the 7th Texas Infantry, C.S.A., based in Freestone County. An ex-Confederate Association formed in 1890 and began meeting at this site in 1891. In 1892, the veterans group was incorporated into the United Confederate Veterans organization as W.L. Moody Camp No. 87. By 1896, they obtained the deed to the reunion grounds from the Moody Family. Brush arbors were erected by the veteran families for the three-day encampment which included speeches, concerts, musicals and dances. The reunion would begin with a firing of Valverde cannon, which now sits at the courthouse. As many as 8,000 attendees would come in from surrounding communities. As time went by, more and more of the old soldiers were taking their final roll call. By 1933, the Confederate reunions ceased. The Moody family designated the grounds as the W.L. Moody Camp, Memorial Park in 1947, and placed it under the supervision of the City of Fairfield as a memorial to veterans of all U.S. wars. In 1951, the grounds were used for the Fairfield Centennial Celebration, as well as the Freestone County Boys Club and Livestock Show. Area families continue to use the camp grounds for gathering during the County Homecoming, Fair and Rodeo week. Since 1991, the W.l. Moody Memorial Park Campsite Association has assisted the city in maintaining the family campsites and encouraging the community spirit of the old historic reunions. (2014)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Beginning in 1891, aging Confederate veterans of Freestone County gathered at these grounds for three-day reunions of speeches, music, and dances, opened each year by the firing of a Valverde cannon. Named for Col. William Lewis Moody, who raised a local company of the 7th Texas Infantry, the site drew as many as 8,000 attendees before the reunions ended in 1933 as the old soldiers passed away. In 1947 the Moody family dedicated the grounds as a memorial park to veterans of all American wars.
Why it matters
The reunion grounds capture how the Civil War generation kept its memory alive through decades of communal remembrance, and how such spaces evolved into broader veterans' memorials.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Lewis Moody
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Colonel Wm. L. Moody
Fairfield, TX
Arriving in Texas from Virginia in 1852, William L. Moody organized and captained Company G of the 7th Texas Infantry, the first Freestone County unit to march to the Civil War. Captured at Fort Donelson in 1862 and later exchanged, he won promotion to colonel for bravery, cited for rallying his men in hand-to-hand fighting in dense woods before wounds sent him home. After the war he moved to Galveston and became a leader in its financial, philanthropic, and civic life.
Val Verde Battery, C.S.A.
Fairfield, TX
Six brass field guns captured by Lt. Joseph D. Sayers' company at the 1862 Battle of Val Verde in New Mexico were hauled back to Texas at great difficulty to arm a hand-picked Confederate battery. The Val Verde guns saw action in the recapture of Galveston in 1863 and the Battle of Mansfield in 1864, where the men seized longer-range pieces. Rather than surrender them at war's end, the crew buried four, and last commander T. D. Nettles brought this one home to Freestone County.
Site of Law Office, General John Gregg
Fairfield, TX
A Fairfield lawyer, judge, and newspaper founder, John Gregg helped lead Texas out of the Union at the 1861 Secession Convention and served in the Confederate Congress before raising a Texas infantry regiment. As a general he fought near Vicksburg and at Chickamauga and commanded the famed Texas Brigade at the Battle of the Wilderness, until he was killed near Richmond in October 1864. His widow braved the battle lines by wagon to bring his body home.
Captain L. D. Bradley
Fairfield, TX
Alabama-born L. D. Bradley came to Texas in 1855 and commanded a company in Waul's Texas Legion during the Civil War. On May 22, 1863, in the Siege of Vicksburg, he led a daring volunteer party of some forty men to seal a Federal breach in a Confederate fort on the Mississippi, acting under heavy fire. He later commanded a regiment defending the Texas coast and in the 1864 Red River Campaign.