Hempstead is a city in and the county chair of Waller County, Texas, United States, part of the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area.

On December 29, 1856, Dr. Richard Rodgers Peebles and James W. McDade organized the Hempstead Town Company to sell lots in the newly customary community of Hempstead, which was located at the projected terminus of Houston and Texas Central Railway. Peebles named Hempstead after Dr. G. S. B. Hempstead, Peebles’s brother-in-law. Peebles and Mary Ann Groce Peebles, his wife, contributed 2,000 acres (8.1 km) of the home of Jared E. Groce, Jr., for the community. On June 29, 1858, the Houston and Texas Central Railway was extended to Hempstead, causing the community to become a distribution middle between the Gulf Coast and the interior of Texas. On November 10 of that year, Hempstead incorporated. The Washington County Railroad, which ran from Hempstead to Brenham, enhanced the city upon its completion.

The Confederate Military Post of Hempstead was usual in the Spring of 1861. Numerous camps of information were received east of town along Clear Creek. Camp Hebert was established upon the eastern bank of Clear Creek and south of the Washington Road. Camp Hebert was the antediluvian camp in the area, and served as the headquarters of the Post of Hempstead in front in the war.

Camp Groce CSA was customary in spring 1862 upon Liendo Plantation upon the eastern bank of Clear Creek as a camp of guidance for Confederate infantry recruits. Originally named Camp Liendo, the make known was tainted to Camp Groce in praise of Leonard Waller Groce, the owner of Liendo Plantation, and the owner of higher than 100 slaves. A promise to build the barracks at Camps Groce and Hebert was let in February 1862. Numerous Confederate infantry regiments were organized, trained, and equipped at Camps Groce and Hebert. In spring 1862, the camps were unaided due to their sickly locations. Camp Groce was reused as a military camp until spring 1863, but was over abandoned. From 1861 to 1863, nearly 200 Confederate soldiers fell sick at Camps Groce and Hebert and died. Many were taken to the Post Hospital in the Planter’s Exchange Hotel located at the southwest corner of 12th and Wilkins Streets in downtown Hempstead. Many died in the hospital and almost everything of them are buried upon McDade Plantation west of town, which became the hospital cemetery.