DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little Texas flavor along the way. Soon after the Civil War — and we're talking soon, the ink barely dry on the peace — General George Armstrong Custer and his cavalry unit rode into Texas. They weren't coming for the scenery.
They were part of a large U.S. force sent to establish order and to counter the threat posed by French-controlled Mexico. That's right — as if one war ending wasn't enough to keep a man busy, there was a whole other situation brewing just across the Rio Grande. So Custer came, and he brought his cavalry with him.
And from August to October of 1865, he and several U.S. Cavalry units made camp right here. Now, here's where the story gets a little more interesting than your average military bivouac — because Custer didn't camp alone.
He brought his wife. Elizabeth Custer. Libbie, as she was known.
She was right here with him, on the grounds of the Liendo plantation, the property of one Leonard W. Groce. And Leonard W.
Groce was no ordinary landowner. He was the heir of Jared Groce — cotton baron, and one of the original "Old 300" settlers of Texas. So you've got a Union general and his wife camped on the land of a family whose roots go all the way down to the very founding stock of this state.
That is some loaded real estate. Now, you might expect that arrangement to be about as comfortable as a rattlesnake in a bedroll. But here's the thing — the Custers and the Groces got along.
Warm relations, the marker says, and not just with the Groces but with area Texans. And a good part of the reason? Custer's own insistence that his federal troops treat Texans and their property with respect.
Whether you admire the man or not, that choice mattered in a place still raw from the war. Three months on the Liendo plantation — August, September, October, 1865 — and then they moved on, as soldiers do. But the ground they camped on still remembers.
This marker was placed as part of the Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood, marking the stretch from 1845 to 1995. One hundred and fifty years of Texas, and this patch of Waller County ground holds one quiet chapter of it.
What the marker says
Soon after the Civil War General George Armstrong Custer and his cavalry unit arrived in Texas as part of a large U.S. force sent to establish order and counter the threat posed by French-controlled Mexico. From August to October, 1865, Custer, his wife Elizabeth (Libbie), and several U.S. Cavalry units camped here on the Liendo plantation of Leonard W. Groce, heir of "Old 300" settler and cotton baron Jared Groce. The Custers enjoyed warm relations with the Groces and area Texans in part because of his insistence that federal troops treat Texans and their property with respect. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995