CAMP GROCE. Camp Groce was on Col. Leonard W. Groce's Liendo Plantation, on Clear Creek and the Houston and Texas Central Railway two miles east of Hempstead in Waller County. The camp was the first permanent Confederate military prison west of the Mississippi. It was one of two camps in Texas where northern prisoners were held, probably in 1861-63. It received 110 prisoners from Houston on June 13, 1863. The camp had several long barracks.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Leon Mitchell, Jr., "Camp Ford, Confederate Military Prison," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 66 (July 1962). Frank E. White, History of the Territory that Now Constitutes Waller County, Texas, from 1821 to 1884 (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1936).
