Many Confederate camps (bivouacs) were given unofficial names by the troops stationed there. For example, my great-grandfather Joshua D.Coffee and 24 men of Col.P.C.Hardeman's 1st Texas Cavalry, C.S.A., were stationed at Colbert's Plantation in Indian Territory, about one-half mile north of Colbert's Ferry crossing of the Red River on the Texas Road. He was one of 25 pickets at Colbert's Ferry from July 1863 to April 1864. In April, the pickets were reassigned to Major J.R. Diamond's Brush Battalion, Col. Bourland's Border Regiment and were relocated to Oxford Lake in Collin County. They remained there from June 1864 until the end of the war. My great-grandfather told his children that he was stationed at "Camp Colbert" in Indian Territory which never officially existed.

Apparently Brig.Gen. H.E.McCulloch or the men of Maj.Diamond's Brush Battalion at Oxford Lake never gave it a name. Oxford Lake was a sad place and my great-grandfather spent most of his time driving a freight wagon being pulled by a pair of mules while he was foraging for donations of food, clothing, blankets and camp supplies from civilians in the surrounding countryside. The rest of the time he spent chopping and hauling timber to build "shebangs" (shelters).