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Joe B. Frantz

Frantz, Joe B. Texas: A Bicentennial Celebration. New York: W. N. Norton & Co, 1976.

The chapter where the excerpt appears is called “A Tagalong Confederate” and it discusses the decision to secede from the Union because the people from the state wanted it that way. After discussing the loss and the retaking of Galveston by Magruder, the author goes on to describe the events of Sabine Pass and Dick Dowling’s actions that made him a hero. The author calls the battle a “memorable fight” and considers Dowling one of Texas’ “few legitimate heroes” (106).  While the section of the chapter does talk about the numbers of the battle and describes Fort Sabine as a small earthwork fort with only six cannons and forty-two men, it does not dwell on the amazing disparity between the two armies like some of our other sources have (106). The author gives a concise summary of the battle and it discusses the impact that Sabine Pass had on the rest of the country. It says that The New York Herald credited Dowling’s victory as an important reason for a lower morale among Union troops (107).  The couple of paragraphs dedicated to Dowling and to Sabine Pass do not carry an exalting tone and they seem to be geared towards instruction. Just as the narrative flows into this topic, it flows out and the author goes on to discuss Banks and his campaign in the following year. While Frantz does not ignore that Dowling was a hero for his participation in the battle, the purpose of the chapter is mainly to provide a history. The chapter as a whole is very interesting because it only mentions slavery twice, which is odd considering the whole chapter is dedicated to the Civil War.
The book by Joe Frantz is part of a book series called “The States and the Nation Series” that aims to aid the American people in understating their history and in providing a resource for those who want to have a serious look at the history of the country. This series was funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and was administered by the American Association for State and Local History. There were histories published of all fifty states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as part of the Unites States bicentennial celebration. The book was published in New York in 1976 and it has not been published a second time. According to the opening pages, the book “represents the scholarship, experience, and opinions of its author.” Frantz was born in Texas and he studies at the University of Texas before becoming a professor there. The fact that the book was part of a national series and that it was funded by a national organization might explain the lack of exaltation of Dowling and of Sabine pass found in the book. This book was not written in the perspective of a Texas native, but it expels the information that the United States as a whole wants portrayed about each if it is fifty states.

 

Texas: A Bicentennial History (106-107)

Another memorable fight took place at Sabine Pass, sort of a border lake between Texas and Louisiana where the Sabine and the Neches rivers empty their waters for the enjoyment of the Gulf of Mexico. In September 1862 a Federal patrol had forced out the Confederates. In the following January the Confederates recaptured the pass and gave Texas one of its few legitimate Civil War heroes. Richard W. Dowling, out of the Galway County, Ireland, and still in his twenties, had participated in the recapture of Galveston three weeks earlier and had been placed in the command of Company F, Texas Heavy Artillery, with orders to spike the guns at Fort Sabine. Instead of obeying, Dowling had taken rails from the Eastern Texas Railroad to strengthen the fort and left the guns intact.

Undoubtedly Dowling gave Texas its most spectacular Civil War victory. The Federal leadership had launched an expedition of twenty ships with 5, 000 troops for an apparent major invasion of Texas. Defending against this group was Fort Sabine, with a small earthworks, six cannons, and forty-two men known as the Davis Guards, most of the Irish out of Houston. Three of the Federal gunboats – the Clifton, the Arizona, and the Sachem – were to conduct a prelanding artillery assault, after which troops would move ashore.

The engagement began on the afternoon of September 8, 1863, when the Clifton and Sachem in parallel formation moved up the channel of the pass. When the ships came within 1,200 yards of the fort, the Confederates opened fire on the Sachem and on the third and fourth round put the gunboat out of action. The Confederates then turned their guns on the Clifton, which lost the use of several of its guns, was grounded, and finally surrendered. Then the Sachem surrendered. Altogether the battle took only forty-five minutes.
Major General William B. Franklin, in command of the expedition, turned what was left of it back to New Orleans, and gained his place in American military history as the first American general to lose a fleet to land batteries alone. The losses weren’t great – the Federals lost 19 killed, 9 wounded, 37 missing, and 315 taken prisoner. They also lost two steamers. Dowling was an overnight hero.

The small Sabine Pass operation had international repercussions. Doubts about the efficiency of the Federal navy were strengthened. The New York Herald credited Dowling’s victory, together with the Federal loss at Chickamauga, with drastically lowering the credit of the United States.

General N. P. Banks, who with Admiral David G. Farragut had planned the invasion through the Sabine Pass, tried to again at another point. In the winter of 1863 his combined naval and land force of 6,000 men moved against the lower Rio Grande, where the Confederates lacked even the strength of the forty-two men at Fort Sabine. Only by one of the Federals picked off the coast towns – the island of Brazos de Santiago, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Aransas Pass, Indianola, and points between, until Galveston and Sabine Pass remained the only ports opened to Texas and the Confederates.

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