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.

Connor, Seymour V. Texas: A History. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1971.

Seymour Connor’s description of the Battle of Sabine Pass is brief, but it does not undermine the importance of the battle.  Connor writes that Jefferson Davis later called it, “the greatest military victory in the world.”(199) Four thousand troops on seventeen transports protected by four gunboats set sail for Sabine Pass.  Connor emphasizes the vast disparity between the federal and confederate troops.  He writes, “Against this formidable array stood Lieutenant Dick Dowling and forty-six men, most of them former Irish colonists, behind an unfinished earthwork about a hundred yards long.”(199) He paints a picture that it was the ingenuity and true grit of Dowling’s troops that overcame the vast numbers of the federal troops.  Strategy, patience, and efficiency resulted in fighting that lasted less than an hour.  Connor claims, “The federal loss was two gunboats, nineteen men dead, nine wounded, thirty-seven missing, and three hundred fifteen prisoners.”(199) Dowling’s crew did not have a single man injured in the skirmish. Connor ends his discussion of Dowling and Sabine Pass with “The incredible victory not only turned back the invasion but also lowered northern morale, caused a temporary drop in stock prices in New York, and reduced United States credit abroad by a reported five per cent.”(199) According to Connor, Dowling’s incredible victory had a huge impact on the Union’s war effort.  Not only did it have an effect domestically, but it also had one internationally.

Seymour Connor wrote this as a history text book meant for the use as a college and university text.

In the preface he states, “It has long been my conviction that history in general should be written in as interesting a manner as the author is capable of and that history textbooks in particular should be lifted from the dry-as-dust stereotypes that too often stunt rather than enlarge a student’s perspectives. This book is intended for us as a college and university text; I hope that it is sufficiently well written to merit the attention of serious adult readers as well as students.”

The Thomas J. Crowell Company published the book in New York in 1971. It was hard to find any information on Connor, but I do know he was a History professor at the University of Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas.  It is very clear that Connor loved Texas history and although his account of Dowling at Sabine Pass was brief, it still emphasized the importance of that particular battle.

Military Affairs

Early offensives It is interesting that although Texas was not in the major theaters of operation during the war, the first, the last, and the most decisive battles were all fought in Texas and won by Texans. The first, surrender of federal troops and military supplies in Texas, which began on February 18, was not exactly a battle, but it was an important victory. The last was the battle of Palmito Ranch on May 12, 1865, when the victorious Texans learned from their prisoners of the surrenders of Lee and Johnston and the collapse of the Confederate government. The most decisive was the overwhelming defeat of the federal invasion at Sabine Pass on September 8, 1863. (P 195)

The Defense of the Coast The federal naval blockade reached the Texas coast during the summer of 1861, but for nearly a year it remained nothing more than a naval patrol. Then in August 1862 the lower coast was attacked at Matagorda Bay and Corpus Christi. Both attacks were repelled, but Corpus Christi sustained a severe bombardment from federal gunboats. In September 1862 federal troops struck Sabine Pass, slipped northward to Beaumont where they burned the railroad depot, destroyed the fortification at the Pass, and demolished a railroad bridge over Taylor Bayou. The next month the federal gunboat Harriet Lane entered Galveston harbor and demanded the surrender of the island. The handful of Texas troops at the fort resisted but were forced to evacuate under a flag of truce after heavy shelling from seven additional federal gunboats. Not until early December, however, did a federal landing party occupy Galveston.

Magruder, having replaced Hebert in command, determined to recapture Galveston, for it was the major port of Texas and a key to successful blockade running. The attack was made on New Year’s Eve, 1862, Magruder himself leading the land operation by moving troops across to the island over the railroad bridge from Birginia Point, and Tom Green with his cavalry regiment from Sibley’s brigade attacking the United States Naval fleet in the harbor. This was one of the most surprising operations of the war. Using several small ships and barges, Green hid his men on the decks behind cotton bales, for the compressed cotton made an unusually good armor. Green and his men boarded and captured the Harriet Lane, and a second gunboat was run aground. The remainder of the federal fleet evacuated under a flag of truce. Thus, with the capture of two ships and six hundred men, an important victory, Confederate control over Galveston was reestablished, not to be shaken again during the war.

The following month, using similar tactics, Magruder drove from the coast two gunboats commanding Sabine Pass, capturing one of them and taking more than one hundred prisoners. Confederate troops reoccupied the pass and constructed a rude earthwork for defense. Little did they realize that in a few months they would bear the brunt of a major federal offensive and that Sabine Pass would be the scene of what Jefferson Davis later called “the greatest military victory in the world.” (P 198)

In August 1863 federal authorities decided upon a major assault on Texas to cut it off from the Confederacy. It was to be a combined land and sea operation under General Nathaniel P. Banks and Admiral David Farragut. Four thousand federal troops boarded some seventeen transports at New Orleans and, protected by four gunboats, sailed for Sabine Pass. Against this formidable array stood Lieutenant Dick Dowling and forty-six men, most of them former Irish colonists, behind an unfinished earthwork about one hundred yards long. The federals opened the attack on the morning of September 8, 1863. A lucky shot from one of the Texan’s six small cannon sank one of the gunboats in the channel. A second gunboat, loaded with five hundred sharpshooters, made for the fort; Dowling and his gunners held their fire until it was less than five hundred yard away, then took deadly aim, and a direct hit exploded it boiler amidships. Men and animals scrambled to save themselves as the Texas riflemen opened fire. The fighting last less than an hour. The federal loss was two gunboats, nineteen men dead, nine wounded, thirty-seven missing, and three hundred fifteen prisoners. Dowling and his hardy bad, who had set something of a record by firing their artillery pieces over a hundred times during the brief engagement, had not a man injured. The incredible victory not only turned back the invasion but also lowered northern morale, caused a temporary drop in stock prices in New York, and reduced United States credit abroad by a reported five per cent.   (P 199)