Camp Victoria
US 87 North, North of Spring Creek Road - Victoria County, Texas

Although the town of Victoria had been established in 1824, it was all but abandoned during the Texas Revolution in 1836, as settlers fled east during the runaway scrape. After the revolutions successful close at the battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, the Texas Army followed the retreating Mexican troops, stopping in nearby Goliad to bury the hundreds of Texans who had been killed there. Led by Gen. Thomas J. Rusk, the 300 remaining Texas troops set up camp here in early June 1836, along Spring Creek at a site called Camp Victoria.

While encamped here, Rusk received a message from Henry Teal and Henry W. Karnes, both imprisoned in Matamoros. The message, hidden in the handle of a whip, became known as the Whiphandle Dispatch. It warned of a potential attack by a reassembling Mexican Army. Rusk immediately wrote to Gen. E.P. Gaines of the U.S. Army, requesting help. Gaines sent troops from Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee to Rusk at Camp Victoria, and the Texan Army swelled to more than 2,500 men by August, the largest assemblage of Texan troops during the entire revolution. Rusk, faced with a much larger army and new military objectives, complained to Texas Provisional President David G. Burnet, who sent Mirabeau B. Lamar to take over command. The troops refused to recognize Lamar, and he returned to the Texas government headquarters at Brazoria. Rusk resumed command over an increasingly restless army, with some troops talking of arresting and trying President Burnet and his cabinet. Brig. Gen. Felix Huston soon replaced Rusk and began preparations for an expedition against Matamoros.

Troops and supplies were moved to El Copano in present-day Refugio County (50 mi. se). The preparations proved unnecessary; neither the expedition nor the Mexican invasion took place.