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Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae (Clifton and Shirley Caldwell Texas Heritage Series)

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Sabine Pass was a narrow, 6-mile-long defile that channeled the Sabine River, which was the boundary between Texas and Louisiana, into the Gulf of Mexico. Guarding the Sabine River was Fort Griffin, a mud citadel which Union Army Intelligence believed had a force of 200 Confederate troops, including a field artillery battery, two 32-pounders (heavy artillery) and two boats that had been converted into rams. Actually, Fort Griffin was manned by only 46 Irish Texans, officially known as the 1st Texas Heavy Artillery, under the command of 25-year-old Lieut. Richard W. Dowling. It's artillery consisted only of six fieldpieces (the two 32-pounders had been removed weeks earlier). The two rams were ordered scuttled by Dowling near the entrance to Lake Sabine. This meant that any Union ships which did make it past Fort Griffin would run into the trap of the sunken boats, especially since the Sabine was running dangerously low.

The Union plan to take Sabine Pass was developed by Maj. Gens. Nathaniel Banks, Henry Halleck, and William Franklin, as well as Admiral David Farragut. The Union assault force would consist of 5,000 troops in 22 transport vessels protected by four gunboats (with another two gunboats in support). On September 8, 1863, the battle began, and after just 45 minutes, it was all over. One gunboat, "Clifton", was so badly hit by the fort's artillery that it was disabled and abandoned, while another, "Sachem", was forced into shallow water and surrendered to the fort. One humiliated captured Union officer said to Lieut. Dowling,"You and your 46 men in your miserable little fort in the rushes have captured two gunboats, a goodly number of prisoners, many stand of small arms, and plenty of good ammunition, and that is not the worst of your boyish tricks: you have sent three Yankee gunboats, 5,000 troops, and a major-general out to sea in the dark!"

The battle at Sabine Pass had disproved once and for all the myth about the invincibility of Union gunboats. And it gave the Confederacy a much-needed victory after recent disasters at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. In fact, President Jefferson Davis was so impressed by Lieut. Dowling and his men that he commemorated the battle by striking a silver medal in honor of the men. A statue honoring Dowling was later erected near the site of the remarkable fight. This is, at least in my opinion, one of the most fascinating battles of the American Civil War, yet very little has been written about it. Edward T. Cotham has obviously done exhaustive research for this book and his narrative makes for an exciting and very informative book on this extraordinary battle. Highly recommended!

Author Edward Cotham provides a well-written and interesting account of the civil war at Sabine Pass and the events leading to a decisive battle there in front of Fort Griffin. Although the author spares few superlatives for the victorious Texans' unanticipated and stunning victory he does so for good reason and in an overall balanced manner. The Union officers' failures (as well as successes in other areas) are fairly presented.

This engagement was small but costly for the Union. It set back operations for capturing the important port of Mobile, Alabama as well as delaying operations against the Texas coast.

On the Union side, the roots of the fiasco rested in poor intelligence, coordination, and execution. The first major failure was the arrival of the attack force, when the coordinating blockader was away re-coaling--setting back the attack a critical day and a half. This provided the small garrison the opportunity to bring powder and projectiles to what would have been a defenseless set of gun emplacements.

The well-led and well-drilled garrison occupied a small but well-conceived and constructed earthen fort. It was ideally sited and designed to inflict maximum damage to any naval assault while limiting their ability to counter fire. Attacking gunboats would be forced to approach in tightly constricted channels where they could employ only their forward most guns at a low profile target. Lt. Dick Dowling's handful of men were itching for a fight and well equipped to do so.

The attack was to be a joint operation, with the navy leading the attack in order to allow the army to land. Unfortunately a lack of intelligence about the new fort and unrealistic expectations of the naval vessels' capacity to fight it meant that the gunboats were at a severe disadvantage. Earlier in the war, a small predecessor fort nearby had been easily taken by Crocker, but allowed to fall back under rebel control. This prompted the CSA to build Fort Griffin, and for Crocker to become overconfident.

During the assault everything that could go wrong for the navy did. The lead ship in the east channel suffered an early hit to its boiler scalding the crew and disabling it. Crocker's flagship in the west channel also was disabled by a hit to its rudder chain, then boiler. The other two navy gunboat captains displayed cowardice and fled, not even attempting to assist their disabled comrades. Crocker attempted to fight on, expecting that the army would land as planned and win the victory. U.S. Gen. Wietzel inexplicably decided not to land his force, squandering the painful sacrifice by the navy. The defenders had only 40 charges of powder in the fort at the end of the battle. Then after the battle Wietzel's superior Gen. Franklin retreated to New Orleans rather than carrying out his original instructions to attack elsewhere along the coast if necessary.

350+ Union sailors and infantry serving as sharpshooters were captured when the two disabled ships were surrendered. The little rebel garrison suffered no casualties. The author reasonably suggests that the setting sun would have made gunnery effect hard to distinguish for the union gunners. Texas rejoiced and the CSA enjoyed some increasingly rare good news.

In addition to the pivotal battle, Cotham reviews the initial Union capture of Sabine Pass, the CSA's successful cottonclad attack, operations at Galveston, and Calcasieu Pass. The maps and figures are excellent. My complaints and quibbles are few: I did notice a few confusing descriptions of some of the heavy artillery early in the book such as an 8 inch Columbiad rebored as a 6" rifle (?) and a 12 pdr howitzer described as a 12 inch howitzer. The author perhaps overstates the importance of the blockade running at Sabine Pass since it seems to have only been well suited for very light vessels rather than steam blockade runners. Also, supplies entering this pass would only really have been available to those in the Trans-Mississippi theater. Finally, I believe he fails to sufficiently emphasize the importance of the early delay that granted the defenders time to obtain ammunition.

In spite of the above minor criticisms I highly recommend this book. It is a fascinating read and provides a useful perspective of seacoast warfare in Texas.

There were actually two battles at Sabine Pass during the Civil War. The first one ended with the fort there being captured by Union forces. However, because of its distance from Union headquarters, Texas was hard to hold, and Sabine Pass was quickly returned to Confederate control. The second battle is the one author Edward T. Cotham, Jr. recounts in his well-researched "Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae."

By the third year of the Civil War, Texas had become an important objective to the Union, primarily to cut off Confederate trade. Sabine Pass was considered the best invasion point because of its proximity, not only to Louisiana and the Mississippi River, but to the Houston train yards.

In the interim between the two battles at Sabine Pass, a new, stronger fort had been built at a location where the river forks around an oyster reef, dividing the stream into two channels. Manned with six guns set to pivot at ninety-degrees the artillery could cover both channels. Lieutenant Dowling expected an assault on the fort and, in preparation, drilled his men using range stakes placed in the two channels.

On September 8, 1863, the Union fleet began to arrive at the mouth of the Pass. In all there were four shallow-draft gunboats, and seven transports loaded with Union solders and sharpshooters. The soldiers were a landing party designated to take the fort from the rear while the gunboats assaulted from the river.

At the start the battle looked to be a match between David and Goliath. The forty-four Confederate gunners, Irishmen of the Davis Guard, were outnumbered a hundred to one. But a series of missteps made by the Union fleet, the shallow water and some deadly accurate fire from the six cannons turned the assault into a rout by this small Confederate contingent.

After 45 minutes, the two leading gunboats ran up a white flag. One had been blown to bits, the other was hung on a sand bar. Dowling sent boats to recover 350 prisoners.

The troop transports never landed. In a desperate attempt to retreat through the shallow water, they off-loaded horses and supplies. For a distance of thirty-five miles west of the battle, beaches were littered with these supplies and the bodies of dead, hobbled horses. As one soldier put it, "Such a skedadling you never saw."

At times I was unable to keep straight the names of the commanding officers on either side in the battle, but confusion is one of the side-effects of the Civil War with brother fighting brother. I appreciated the detailed description of the topography and underwater terrain, as well as the background material the author exhaustively researched, including skirmishes at Corpus Christi and off Matagorda Island.

A monument stands at the Sabine Pass Battleground State Park honoring the Confederate heoes. I found myself wanting to jump in the car and make a trip there, but after a phone call I learned the park has not reopened after damage from Hurricane Rita. More information can be found at the Texas Parks & Wildlife web site, [...].