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A student-led group project from HIST 246
 

Movie Project

April 1st, 2011 by adamz

The movie group met yesterday with Jane at the Digital Media Center and she was very helpful.  Her main point was that we should get all of our pictures, music, video, etc. together, and make a storyboard.  Along with that we should write a script and then combine the two with their help.  She said it takes a long time to edit and so we are doing our best to get ahead of the game.

We split up the work between the four of us and I will focus on Dick Dowling’s life and the Battle of Sabine Pass which should comprise a minute and a half of the video, roughly.  We want the main focus of our video to be on the memory of Dick Dowling, so a majority of our video will be dedicated to that.  We set a deadline to have our scripts done by April 8th, exchange them over the weekend for editing, and meet again on Monday to discuss and start working on the movie.  We are going to use the recorder that is available for checkout at the DMC for the music and voice over, Jane showed us how to use the recorder.

As for the immediate “next step” Kat decided that we set up a Dropbox account so we can share any research we find with our group. Drobox account done. My plan is to start researching Dowling and the Battle of Sabine Pass in the library and the resources we have already acquired from our class. Kat recommended that I use Edward Cotham’s book, “Sabine Pass: The Confederacy’s Thermopylae.  The clock is ticking!

All in all, we had a very productive meeting and we are all excited about the final product of our movie!

Movie Project

April 1st, 2011 by slm2

As Gabby wrote in her post, yesterday, we met with Jane at the Digital Media Center and she was incredibly helpful. She explained to us that the best way to tackle this project is to first gather all of the materials that we want to include in our movie (she described them as ingredients which was a good way to think of it). Once we have all of the materials we want to use–pictures, documents that our class has put online, music and video, we need to write a script and put together a basic storyboard. Then we can check out a recording device or use the recording studio at the DMC to record our script, then one of the women at the DMC will help us put all of this into movie form. She affirmed that no more than 5 minutes was a good length for our movie, and made sure that we understood how long it can take to edit a movie–this means that it is going to be really important for us to get moving on getting all of the “ingredients” for our movie.

With time being a big concern, we split up the work for the movie by themes. We decided this was an equitable way of dividing the work. We are going to focus more on the memory of Dick Dowling in Houston than on the battle of Sabien Pass and Dowling’s life, so Adam is the only member of our group who will be focusing on those topics. I am responsible for gathering all of the materials necessary for our discussion of the rededication of the statue in the 1990s. Fortunately, a lot of those materials are already online thanks to the library assignments, but I also will have to do more independent research, in particular, I am going to try to get in touch with the Dick Dowling Irish Heritage group in Houston. That being said, we all want our scripts drafted and materials gathered by April 8–we then are going to exchange drafts and edit each others’ drafts and meet on April 11 to get working on the movie.

Right now, the major thing that I have done to get moving on my project is to create a dropbox account and to make sure that the group has all of my contact information. This weekend my goal is to go through the Dowling archives that we have put online thanks to the Library Assignments and to go through the Dowling archives that the Houston Public Library has, so that I can get a good idea of what materials I already have access to and what materials I will need to find myself.

Overall, I think that our group is in a really good place, and I’m really excited to be getting to work on this project!

Movie Project

April 1st, 2011 by gl4

Today we met with one of the ladies at the Digital Media Center. She told us all the basic things we need to do before actually making the movie. She advised that we gather all of our media, the pictures, the video, the music, and write the script before going to the DMC again to put our movie together. She also gave us some websites we could use that would not violate copyright. She then told us that we should storyboard our ideas before constructing the movie. She also said that when we were ready, the DMC would be able to teach us how to put the movie together and how to edit it.

After that, we had a meeting to decide the next steps we will take on our project. We decided to all get a Dropbox so that we all have access to the same information. This will make the sharing of information easier within the group. We also decided that we would talk about the Dowling’s life and the Battle of Sabine Pass for about one minute to a minute and a half and use the rest of the five-minute film to talk about the statue and how he is remembered. We feel that focusing on his memory and will provide a different perspective from other sources out there. We also discussed the possibility of having talking heads in our movie. Some possible people for the talking heads are Edward Cotham, author of Sabine Pass: The Confederate Thermopylae, Dowling’s great-great niece or some member of the Dick Dowling Camp.

We split up the work according to themes, instead of tasks and each person is responsible for gathering the information, the visuals and writing a portion of the script related to their themes. Adam is going to be working on Dowling’s life and the Battle of Sabine Pass. Kat will work on the construction of the statue and what was happening around 1905. I will be researching the time in between including when the statue moved locations. Finally, Stephanie will work on the restoration and rededication in the late nineties.

We agreed to have our scripts finished by April 8, so that we would have a change to revise them before meeting. The group will meet April 11 to finalize the scripts and to determine how we will proceed with making the movie.

If I missed anything, I am sure the other members of my group will include it in their posts.

Joe B. Frantz

March 30th, 2011 by gl4

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.

Rupert Norval Richardson

March 30th, 2011 by Kat Skilton

Richardson, Rupert Norval. Texas, the Lone Star State. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1943.

The first edition of Texas, the Lone Star State was written in 1943—during WWII—by an accomplished historian and veteran, Rupert Norval Richardson. In this book Richardson briefly summarizes the accomplishments of Dick Dowling and his men at Sabine Pass.  While the entry glosses briefly over the situation while making clear that the “Federals” were intending to invade Texas by first taking Sabine Pass, but Dowling heroically saved the day.  While the paragraph about Sabine Pass does mention fortifications, in this first edition it does not name a fort of any kind and makes it clear that the officials had only, “fortified it as well as their limited means would permit” (Richardson 1943, 252).  The piece on the battle was very brief, and not very specific at this stage because the author does not mention the number of gunboats or transports involved in the battle.  As we looked at some later editions already in class and only a paragraph existed on Sabine Pass, I chose to also look into the way in which the Civil War was presented by the author.  In the first edition, the Civil War segment starts with the description that ninety percent of all whites in Texas at the start of the war were migrants from other Southern states and uses this to explain that it was “natural for the state to join the proslavery movement” (Richardson 1943, 241).  While the author goes on to explain how secession was voted for and finally happened in Texas, leading with such a statement takes the blame from the state or even individuals as it was only “natural” to break from the Union.

Later editions confront this issue of the nature of Texas’ secession in different ways.  While the 3rd edition stayed with the original argument that it was only natural for a state with 90% former Southern state residents to side with the proslavery arguments the 5th and 6th editions sum up this argument in one sentence, “Mostly immigrants from southern states who were sympathetic to slavery, Texans generally supported the southern position” (Richardson, Wallace, and Anderson 1970, 206).  This argument was tied into a larger paragraph that described the dividing nation listing state rights and distribution of land as causes, but interestingly specifically listing slavery as the main cause for division.  I was particularly surprised by this argument in all of the books as Richardson does not shy away from the fact slavery was a main cause for the Civil War, which I found shocking for a Texas historian. As each edition changed little changed about the overall entry about Dowling.  Like discussed in class, the exclamation point stayed the same and the only real difference between the earlier editions (1st and 3rd) and the later editions (5th and 6th) was the drop of a New York Herald claim stating that the battle and other morale downfalls of the North had caused the credit to rise. The numbers of transports and gunboats, however, present an interesting change.  The first edition completely neglected a number except for an outrageous claim of over 5,000 Federal soldiers on the ships invading Sabine Pass, the third edition listed only 1,500 troops but listed 4 gunboats and 17 transports, the 5th listed 4 gunboats and 23 transports, and the 6th edition stayed the same as the 5th.  These changes in number are very interesting, as one cannot know if the rise in number can be attributed to better research or a kinder light on the memory of Dowling, either way an increase exists and only by seeing the earlier editions and later editions does it become clear that these numbers may not be fact.

However, given the background of Rupert Norval Richardson, they probably are fact or at least based in fact.  Richardson according to the Handbook of Texas was a well-known Texas historian and educator.  He wrote many publications on Texas history and was well known for his work with the Texas State Historical Survey Committee (now the Texas Historical Commission).  He was a well-qualified and respected individual in the field of Texas history and the President of Hardin-Simmons University in Texas for many years.  While he died in 1988, his book Texas, the Lone Star State lived on as it was a book with the distinct purpose of telling the story of Texas history. nEach of the four editions I had access to were written at very different times, but for mostly the same purpose.  The book, Texas, the Lone Star State was written to be a textbook for both high school and college students as well as an accessible book of Texas history for the greater populous.  As mentioned before, the 1st edition was published in 1943, during the Second World War.  The 3rd edition was a long time later, in 1970 when the country was going through massive changes in identity and just coming out of the Civil Rights Movement.  The 5th edition was written in 1988, once again a time of change as the walls between the Soviet Union and the United States which had been up throughout the Cold War were starting to come down (the Berlin Wall was finally torn down in 1989), yet this sheds little light on why there was a change in the wording of why Texas entered the Civil War here as opposed to in 1970 when it would have maybe been more appropriate given the recent Civil Rights Movement.  Finally, the 6th edition was written in 1993, but exhibited no considerable changes even given the fact that the authorship had changed as Richardson was deceased.

Transcription From: Richardson, Rupert Norval. Texas, the Lone Star State. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1943.

Fighting took place about Sabine Pass, the outlet for both the Sabine and the Neches rivers.  In September 1862, a Federal blockade patrol forced the Confederates to abandon it.  Early in January following, the Confederates reoccupied the place and fortified it as well as their limited means would permit.  Admiral David G. Farragut and General N.P. Banks then made plans for a major campaign against Texas which would begin with the retaking of Sabine Pass.  Four gunboats and a large collection of transports bearing more than 5,000 troops attacked it on September 8, 1863.  To meet this formidable force Lieutenant Dick Dowling and two small gunboats and a garrison of forty-seven men!  Yet he disabled and captured two enemy craft, took about 350 prisoners and turned back the entire expedition.  His victory was a severe blow to the morale of the North and augmented doubts about the efficiency of the Federal Navy.  The New York Herald credited it, together with the Federal defeat at Chickamauga, with lowering the credit of the United Sates to the extent of raising the price of gold 5 per cent.

Transcription From: Richardson, Rupert Norval, Ernest Wallace, and Adrian N. Anderson. Texas, the Lone Star State. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice-Hall, 1970.

Fighting also took place about Sabine Pass, the outlet for both the Sabine and the Neches rivers.  In September 1863 a Federal blockade patrol forced the Confederates to abandon it.  After retaking Galveston, the Confederates on January 21 reoccupied the place and fortified it as well as their limited means would permit. Admiral David G. Farragut and General N.P. Banks then made plans for a major campaign against Texas that would begin with the retaking of Sabine Pass. Four gunboats and 17 transports bearing about 1,500 troops for the initial landing attacked it on September 8, 1863.  To meet this formidable force, Lieutenant Dick Dowling had two small gunboats and a garrison of 46 men! Yet he disabled and captured tow enemy craft, took about 350 prisoners, and turned back the entire expedition.  His victory was a severe blow to the morale of the North and augmented doubts about the efficiency of the Federal Navy.  The New York Herald credited it, together with the Federal defeat at Chickamauga, with lowering the credit of the United Sates to the extent of raising the price of gold 5 percent.

Transcription From: Richardson, Rupert Norval, Ernest Wallace, and Adrian N Anderson. Texas, the Lone Star State. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice-Hall, 1988.

Fighting also took place around Sabine Pass, the outlet for both the Sabine and Neches rivers.  In September 1862 a Federal blockade patrol forced the Confederates to abandon it.  After retaking Galveston, the Confederates on January 21 reoccupied and fortified the post at Sabine Pass, Fort Griffin, as well as their limited means would permit.  However, Union leaders Admiral G. Farragut and General N.P. Banks planned for a major campaign against Texas that would begin with the retaking of Sabine Pass.  Four gunboats and 23 transports, bearing about 5,00 troops for the initial landing, attacked Fort Griffin on September 8, 1863.  To meet the formidable force, Lieutenant Dick Dowling had two small gunboats and a garrison of 46 men!  Yet he disabled and captured two enemy craft, took about 350 prisoners, and turned back the entire expedition.  His victor was a severe blow to the morale of the North and Augmented doubts about the efficiency of the Federal navy.

Transcription From: Richardson, Rupert Norval, Adrian N Anderson, and Ernest Wallace. Texas, the Lone Star State. 6th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice Hall, 1993.

Fighting also took place around Sabine Pass, the outlet for both the Sabine and the Neches rivers.  In September 1862, a federal blockade patrol forced the Confederates to abandon it.  After retaking Galveston, the Confederates on January 21 reoccupied and fortified the post at Sabine Pass, Fort Griffin, as well as their limited means would permit.  However, Union leaders Admiral David G. Farragut and General N.P. Banks planned for a major campaign against Texas that would begin with the retaking of Sabine Pass.  Four gunboats and 23 transports, bearing about 5,000 troops for the initial landing, attacked Fort Griffin on September 8, 1963.  To meet the formidable force, Lieutenant Dick Dowling had two small gunboats and a garrison of 48 men!  Yet when he disabled and captured two enemy craft, took about 350 Union prisoners, and turned back the entire expedition.  His victory was a severe blow to the morale of the North and augmented doubts about the efficiency of the Union navy.

Seymour V. Connor

March 30th, 2011 by adamz

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)

 

David G. McComb

March 29th, 2011 by slm2

McComb, David G. Texas: A Modern History. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.

David G. McComb’s, Texas: A Modern History does not attempt to discuss the Civil War in its entirety, but rather, it focuses very specifically on the role that Texas played in the Civil War. In fact, McComb dedicated no more than 8 pages of his 184-page book to the Civil War at all. That being said, McComb wrote two powerful, though brief paragraphs about Dick Dowling and the Battle of Sabine Pass. McComb described the fort from which Dowling and his men fought off the Union invasion as “earthworks” that “Confederate forces had thrown up,” and said that Dowling and 42 men fought off five thousand Union troops with twenty ships and three gunboats (74). According to McComb’s account of the story, after just 45 minutes the Union forces surrendered and the Confederacy took two of the gunboats and 315 men prisoners. He additionally notes that no “rebels” were hurt or killed. Most notably, he commented that Union General William B. Franklin “got the reputation of being the only American general who managed to lose a fleet in a contest with land batteries,” thus highlighting, and almost (though subtly so) mocking, the Union loss (74). Notably, there is no mention of slavery in McComb’s account of the battle of Sabine Pass. Additionally, although McComb is a professional historian, he does not mention the fact that the Confederate fort was professionally engineered, as we know to be the case. Ultimately, although McComb does not glorify the Confederacy, he certainly does not downplay how remarkable Dowling’s victory was either.

In McComb’s 2010 revised edition of Texas: A Modern History, his discussion of Dick Dowling is word-for-word identical to what he published in the 1989 edition. Indeed, the page numbers are almost the same—page 74 in the 1989 edition, while in the 2010 edition the two paragraphs begin on page 73 and are continued on 74. This is not particularly surprising, however, as McComb’s revised edition was intended to continue the story of Texas and cover the late 20th and early 21st centuries, rather than to change what he had already published. Indeed, the two editions are nearly identical, but the revised edition contains an additional chapter. However, I personally was surprised to see that he did not make changes to the whole book. As professor emeritus of history at Colorado State University, it would seem that McComb would recognize that over the 20 years between his two editions, scholarship about the history of the South has changed and grown dramatically. It was disappointing to see that he did not show those changes in his new edition.

Although McComb is a professor of history, this book was written with the general adult population, rather than the university community, in mind. His preface states: “This is a brief, narrative history of Texas written for the adult reader who wishes to probe into the ethos of a people, taste the unique flavor of the culture, and experience the rhythm of development.” In that sense, McComb’s book is something of a textbook for adults, written to be both informative and enjoyable. McComb was raised in Houston, and is a member of the Texas State Historical Association, and it is clear throughout his book that it was a project that was very personal for him. For example, he took many of the photographs featured in the book, and the conclusion of his preface reads: “It wasn’t always easy to be a Texan; it still isn’t.” Clearly, McComb felt personally connected to this book, as it allowed him to write a narrative of his home state. Though at times McComb does write critically about Texas, understanding the potential bias that he had coming into this project (anyone who knows anyone from Texas will tell you how fiercely proud Texans are of their state) is key to understanding why he wrote the way that he did, and perhaps explains why he did not write more critically about Dick Dowling and the Civil War.

Chapter 3: Texas and the United States, page 74 (1989 Edition)

Nine months later a federal invasion of Texas was stopped at Sabine Pass. At this strategic point where the waters from Sabine Lake empty into the Gulf of Mexico, the Confederate forces had thrown up earthworks and installed six cannons and forty-two men. The soldiers, mainly Irish Houstonians, under the command of Lieutenants N.H. Smith and Richard W. Dowling, a gregarious barkeeper in Houston, faced an invading force of five thousand on twenty vessels protected by three gunboats. The Northern idea was to have the gunboats silence the fort before the troops landed.

As two of the boats approached, the Confederate battery opened fire. Shortly, the rebel guns knocked out one gunboat and then concentrated their fire on the second. In forty-five minutes the second boat went aground and both of the ships surrendered. The Confederates took the two gunboats and 315 prisoners. With that, the invading force retreated to New Orleans, and its leader, General William B. Franklin, got the reputation of being the only American general who managed to lose a fleet in a contest with land batteries. The rebel loss was “ strictly and positively, nobody hurt.”

Chapter 3: Texas and the United States, pages 73-74 (Revised 2010 Edition)

Nine months later a federal invasion of Texas was stopped at Sabine Pass. At this strategic point where the waters from Sabine Lake empty into the Gulf of Mexico, the confederate forces had thrown up earthworks and installed six cannons and forty-two men. The soldiers, mainly Irish Houstonians, under the command of Lieutenants N. H. Smith and Richard W. Dowling, a gregarious barkeeper in Houston, faced an invading force of five thousand on twenty vessels protected by three gunboats. The Northern idea was to have the gunboats silence the fort before the troops landed.

As two of the boats approached, the Confederate battery opened fire. Shortly, the rebel guns knocked out one gunboat and then concentrated their fire on the second. In forty-five minutes the second boat went aground and both of the ships surrendered. The Confederates took the two gunboats and 315 prisoners. With that, the invading force retreated to New Orleans, and its leader, General William B. Franklin, got the reputation of being the only American general who managed to lose a fleet in a contest with land batteries. The rebel loss was “strictly and positively, nobody hurt.”

 

 

The Movie Project

March 22nd, 2011 by Caleb McDaniel

Hello Movie Group! We’ve reached that part of the course where it’s time to start working on your small group projects for the Dick Dowling archive. In this post I’m going to talk a little bit about the project you’ve been assigned–making a brief movie related to Dowling’s statue and memory. Please take time to read this post carefully so that you can begin to talk amongst yourselves about what you plan to do.

In the course of this semester, you’ve learned a lot about Dowling and the Battle of Sabine Pass that you probably didn’t know when we first tramped out to the statue during the first week of classes. Even if you had gone out to the statue yourself, you could have learned something about it from the historical marker. But as we’ve seen, even the marker and the rededication ceremony that accompanied it has a particular history that might not be apparent to a viewer of the marker, and there are things about the battle that the marker emphasizes while leaving other things out altogether.

In this project, your challenge will be to communicate some of what you’ve learned to a wider audience and interpret it by producing a movie about Dowling and his memory, suitable for upload to the Internet either on our Dowling archive site or a video service like YouTube.

Conceivably, your movie could be of any length and talk about anything related to the Dowling statue. But in deciding what to put in your movie, think about the specific virtues of the medium you’re working with. One advantage of a movie is the diversity of content it can contain–sound, text, images, and moving images. We’ve seen some movies in class this semester, like Henry Louis Gates’s documentary on Looking for Lincoln, which give some sense of the kind of material a documentary film (even a brief one) might contain. Consider the kinds of things even these brief eight- to ten-minute films manage to convey about Lincoln and his contested memory. Or consider these even briefer student-designed videos as possible models for what you might be able to do.

As you watch such videos, it should quickly become clear that your primary chore will be making tough decisions about how to fill the silence and make a video that will appeal to and inform general viewers while simultaneously helping them interpret what they are seeing. Those are decisions that involve both technical and interpretive dimensions.

The Technical Dimension

To complete this project, you’ll need to learn about how to use video recording equipment, and how to edit video files. Fortunately, the Digital Media Center includes the equipment you need to do these things. And the staff in the Media Center, including director Lisa Spiro, are available to help you. One of the first things you should so is meet as a group with Lisa (she knows you’re coming) to figure out the kinds of things that are technically possible when making a movie, and the kinds of things that aren’t. You can also ask about renting equipment to make your movie.

As you work on your movie, you may discover other technical tasks that you’ll need to figure out, like how to record or sample music (if you choose to include it), or how to strip video off of other sources (like, to give an example, this video of the recent Dick Dowling Days at Sabine Pass).

To determine what technical skills you’ll need to be make your movie, you’ll first need to decide what kind of video you want to make. Will it be modeled on a news report, with the standard correspondent-with-microphone format? Will it be more like a documentary with narration in the background? Will it only include images available for primary source documents? Or do you want to record actual video of sites in the city like the statue in Hermann Park or Dowling’s gravesite in St. Vincent’s Cemetery? Whatever you decide, it will be crucial for you to make early contact with the technical experts in the Digital Media Center so you’ll know the technical parameters you have to work in.

The Interpretive Dimension

Just as with the podcast group, the primary challenge for you will be to determine what to include in your movie. Before you ever record or edit a scene, that means you’ll need to script out what will be in the video and how long you want the movie to be.

As you script your podcast, the biggest question will be about what you want the movie to be about and what point you want it to make. To answer that question, you’ll need to think first about audience. Imagine your audience as someone who, like you on the first day of class, doesn’t know about Dowling and the statue. What should that viewer learn, in your view?

And more than information, what interpretation do you want the listener to take away from your movie? Virtually any attempt to talk about Dowling carries with it an interpretation. When Jefferson Davis gave his speech about the battle of Sabine Pass (DD0001), which might have been videotaped if the technology had existed, he had a clear message he wanted to get across. And later writers about Dowling have, at various moments in time, presented him in particular ways as a “hero” or otherwise. How will you present him to your audience?

The potential subjects you could cover are conceivably very numerous: (a) the differences between the facts of the battle and the way it has been represented; (b) the changes in the attention given to Dowling over time in Houston’s history, as signified by the placement of stories about him in past newspapers or the fact that a man once feted by governors and mayors and city councilmen later depended on small groups of descendants to promote his memory; (c) the contexts in which Dowling’s memory should be placed and the subjects (slavery? Irish immigration? etc.) that should be included to make sense of the battle or the man, and so on. The choice is ultimately yours to decide what would best make a coherent brief film that takes advantage of the medium and speaks to a wider audience. Given all that you could say about Dowling on the basis of what we’ve learned, the hardest task will probably be deciding what to say and what to leave unsaid, a decision that should be guided partially by your other decisions about how long a video your audience can stand and the purpose of your movie.

What Next?

It could be that not everything you would like to do with your movie will be feasible within the time frame you have to work on this project. That introduces another level of choices you will have to make about what to prioritize, what your main objectives are, and how you will pool your collective skills and divide the labor among you. For now, think broadly about what–in an ideal world–your movie would be able to include. Begin to talk with each other and make an appointment to meet with Lisa Spiro in the Digital Media Center.

By the time that Blog Post #9 is due next Thursday, you should have done at least enough groundwork and discussion on this project to be able to give a progress report and share ideas you have for the movie. The following week, you will meet with me to draft a contract for your project. That meeting won’t be useful to you, however, if you’ve done no thinking or learning about the project before then.

So you should think of these as your next two steps and strive to complete them sometime in the next two weeks: (a) meet with the Digital Media Center staff to get a quick feel for the technology you’ll need to record and edit your movie; (b) talk with each other about the project, paying special attention to sharing information about particular skills and interests you have; (c) begin to discuss with each other what the objective and format of your movie will be, since so many of your decisions will hinge on that.

And as always, if you have questions, let me know!

Confederate “emancipation” aka Confederate Desperation

March 22nd, 2011 by slm2

Bruce Levine’s book, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War might more aptly have been titled “Confederate Desperation: Southern Plans to Grant Incredibly Limited Freedoms to a few Slaves who would join the South’s rapidly Failing Military Efforts in the Civil War.” Levine chronicles the efforts of Southern political and military leaders to boost the South’s declining numbers of soldiers, and although he uses the words “emancipation” and “free” in his title, his central thesis is not that Confederate leaders ever intended to truly free the slaves. Instead, Levine notes that the Confederacy considered arming the slaves and granting freedom to those who fought for the Confederacy only as a desperate war effort, and Confederates believed that “If we triumph in the end…The institution itself will be preserved,” (Kindle Edition, Location 1454). “Emancipation” and “freedom” to the Confederacy meant nothing more than granting some limited rights to African-American slaves in order to preserve white supremacy and Confederate independence.
Emancipation for the Confederacy then, meant something very different than it meant to the Union, but this was not the case throughout the entire war. Indeed, the first Confiscation Act defined freedom in a way very similar to the way that the Confederacy defined Emancipation. The first Confiscation Act sought to deal with the fact that slaves were running away to Union soldiers, and many Union troops felt that sending slaves back to their owners, where they would surely be forced to aid the Confederate war effort, was absurd. The First Confiscation Act thus freed slaves who had been used to help aid the Confederate rebellion, and it allowed Union troops to employ these slaves to help the Union cause. Importantly, this did not free slaves’ families. Similarly, the Confederacy wanted to free a select group of slaves who could help them in their war effort. There was no mention of freeing loyal slaves family members. But the spirit of the laws was similar as well. Levine notes, “In 1861 it [the Union] was still flatly refusing to champion emancipation of southern slaves, still insisting that it fought exclusively to restore the Union,” (Location 1982). Ultimately, this meant that even if a slave gained their freedom by running away to Union lines and stating that their masters had been using them to aid the Confederate war effort, this slave would be aiding a Union that was not committed to ending slavery in the South—they could have received their freedom and helped the Union to preserve the status quo, that is, to keep slavery in the South. Similarly, one slave said of the Confederate option for emancipation, “they said I should fight for my freedom…[but] to gain my freedom…I must fight to keep my wife and children slaves,” (Location 2193). Thus the Confederate definition of “emancipation” and the First Confiscation Act’s definition of “emancipation” were very similar to one another, and did not offer true emancipation.
Ultimately, however, the Union’s definition of emancipation did change. Although the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 did end slavery largely because of Lincoln’s war aims, it freed all slaves and their families, allowed black soldiers to enlist in the Union Army and was the first step in the Union towards granting African-Americans a number of basic human rights. In contrast, the Confederacy never thought that allowing slaves to fight in the Confederate Army or giving them some basic freedoms would lead to any sort of complete emancipation or political and social rights for African-Americans. Levine notes, “Ultimately, the key difference between Union and Confederate emancipation would be found in the nature of the legal status that would replace slavery” and the Confederacy planned to give limited freedom and then “make statues for the regulation of labor,” prevent emancipated slaves from owning property, and keep them politically disenfranchised (Location 1487-1498).
The Confederacy never sought to offer slaves freedom, it sought to do the bare minimum necessary to win the war. Once they had won the war, the Confederacy would work to maintain the status quo, and to keep slaves oppressed and dependent on working on white plantations. This was not freedom; it was a paltry attempt to give slaves in the Confederacy minimal rights to get the maximum reward of Confederate victory.

Confederate Emancipation-A Last Ditch Effort

March 22nd, 2011 by adamz

Bruce Levine’s Confederate Emancipation sheds light on the difficulties the Confederacy had of drafting a plan to arm the soldiers and emancipate them. The title, “Confederate Emancipation” is far from the actual truth because slaves were never truly emancipated under the Confederacy. However, Levine does a good job of narrating the situation of the Confederacy throughout the war and paints a good picture of why it was so difficult for the Confederacy to agree on any form of Emancipation. The idea of emancipating the slaves to add to their numbers quantitatively claimed to have been mentioned at the beginning of the war by few, but it was an idea that received much more attention as the South began to struggle. The Confederates began to embrace the idea of Confederate Emancipation seriously towards the end of the war through meager legislation because it was essentially a last ditch effort.

On November 7, 1864, Jefferson Davis finally decided to embrace the idea of “manumission as a war measure.”(32) Levine writes that the Davis acknowledged the overall manpower problem and he conceded it was quite serious. To address that problem successfully, Davis asserted, would require “a radical modification in the theory of the law.”(32) The idea of using the slaves for the war effort had been kicked around by many of the great Confederate minds, but this was the first time it was admitted publicly by their President. This address to Congress did not yet ask for the power to arm the slaves, rather use them as laborers. Yet, as Levine writes, “He did open the door to employing black troops in the future, should the need arise.”(33) Patrick Cleburne was the first to officially bring this idea up to any form of Confederate officials. In early 1864, he read his memo to the generals assembled in Dalton, Georgia, and he could not receive any support. However, a year later, the situation would be different.

The main reason for the manumission of soldiers was to gain soldiers for the war effort, but there were hopes that such efforts would appeal to British and French forces. Both countries were anti-slavery and some Confederate officials hoped that this extreme effort would gain foreign sympathy and assistance. Patrick Cleburne had promised his fellow officers that such a measure “will at one blow strip the enemy of foreign sympathy and assistance, and transfer them to the South.”(37) By this time in the war, many Confederates were desperate for any form of help. The ploy for foreign sympathy and assistance never proved to be anything more than a dream.

The Confederacy was forced by a worsening war situation to rethink their tactics. Looking across enemy lines after the Confiscation Acts and the Emancipation Proclamation, they saw the enemy using their “property” against them. Confederates were seeing their way of life and the very institution of slavery crumble right in front of their eyes. The manumission of slaves was merely a last ditch effort to win the war and save whatever was left of slavery. Levine writes, “By freeing and arming slaves, Cleburne, Lee, Davis, and Benjamin sought simultaneously to win the war and to salvage as much as they could of the Old South, including the plantation system and the white-supremacist social order more generally.”(110) Some Confederates saw the emancipation of the slaves by the Union as inevitable, so they might as well do it themselves and use them against the Union. This form of emancipation caused an incredible amount of dissent among the Confederate ranks and was merely a last ditch effort to win the war.

Gaining support for emancipation of slaves was next to impossible, but the Confederacy was able to gain a little ground. On February 10, 1865, Jefferson Davis’ old friend Ethelbert Barksdale introduced a bill into the House of Representatives that would become the administration proposal.(117) The bill would allow for Jefferson Davis “to ask for and accept from the owners of slaves, the services of such number of able-bodied negro men as hey may deem expedient.”(117) The House amended that bill because they didn’t think the call for voluntary slaves assistance would result in any numbers. Levine posits, “It added language that would allow Richmond in such a case to call upon each state government to raise it won share of a total of 300,000 black troops.”(118) The bill went through the House and the Senate with a little difficulty and was signed by Davis on March 13. The new Confederate law did not free any slave, and it did not attempt to do so.

Ultimately, the undivided front of the Confederacy hindered its successes both diplomatically and militarily. The debate over how to arm the slaves and/or emancipate them resulted in a Confederate law that hardly did anything-let alone free any slave. I do find Levine’s explanation persuasive because he did a good job of showing the whole picture. I do not think he was trying to make an argument that the South took major attempts to emancipate the slaves. He acknowledges the difference between the Union’s emancipation and the Confederate’s attempts.  Rather, I think he was telling the story as the way it was. The attempt at Confederate Emancipation was at the very end of the war and it was a last ditch effort to win the war and preserve the South’s way of life. Simply put, it was too little too late.