DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, you might expect a place like this to show its scars. A rusted buckle half-buried in the mud, a fire ring gone to moss, something to grab onto and say, there, right there, that's where it happened.
But this stretch of Waller County doesn't give you that. No physical evidence has ever been found of the Confederate camp sites in this area. Not a single trace the ground was willing to keep.
And yet, history has a long memory even when the soil doesn't. Historical accounts have established that this part of Waller County was the location of several Civil War encampments, and when you look at what was here, it starts to make a certain kind of sense. Clear Creek running nearby.
A railroad within reach. And the city of Hempstead close enough to matter. That combination made this area a logical site, the marker says, for training soldiers and for holding federal prisoners.
The two most widely known of these camps were Camp Groce and Camp Herbert. But here's the thing that gets me about this story. Those two weren't alone.
Other camps were known to have been established as the need existed, and abandoned when no longer necessary. Set up, used, let go. No ceremony, no monument, no permanent mark left behind.
Just purpose, and then silence. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what the land has been telling us all along.
What the marker says
Although no physical evidence has been found of the Confederate camp sites in this area, historical accounts have established that this part of Waller County was the location of several Civil War encampments. The close proximity of Clear Creek, the railroad, and the city of Hempstead made this area a logical site for training soldiers and for holding federal prisoners. Although Camp Groce and Camp Herbert were the most widely known, other camps were known to have been established as the need existed and were abandoned when no longer necessary.