Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae.Sabine Pass Sabine Pass is the natural outlet of Sabine Lake into the Gulf of Mexico. It borders Jefferson County, Texas, and Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The First Battle of Sabine Pass, and the second Battle of Sabine Pass took place at Sabine Pass during the American Civil War. : The Confederacy's Thermopylae. By Edward T. Cotham Jr. The Clifton and Shirley Caldwell Texas Heritage Series. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 274. Paper, $21.95, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-292-70594-8; cloth, $39.95, ISBN 0-292-70603-0.) In Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae, Edward T. Cotham Jr. provides a carefully researched and well-written account of the Battle of Sabine Pass, a small but decisive engagement In land and naval warfare, an engagement in which a unit is considered fully committed and cannot maneuver or extricate itself. In the absence of outside assistance, the action must be fought to a conclusion and either won or lost with the forces at hand. where Confederate forces stopped a Union invasion of Texas. On September 8, 1863, in a mere forty-five minutes, Dick Dowling and other Confederate gunners in Fort Griffin Fort Griffin was a Cavalry fort established in the late 1860s in northwest Texas, specifically northwestern Shackelford County, to give settlers protection from early Comanche and Kiowa raids. defeated four Union gunboats and turned back a fleet of twenty-two troop ships that carried an invading force of five thousand Federal soldiers. The Sabine Pass story has received modest attention from professional historians. James M. McPherson
James M. McPherson (born October 11, 1936) is an American Civil War historian, and is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. , Battle Cry of Freedom (New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , 1988), Bruce Catton Bruce Catton (October 9, 1899 — August 28, 1978) was a journalist and a notable historian of the American Civil War. He won a Pulitzer Prize for history in 1954 for A Stillness at Appomattox, his study of the final campaign of the war in Virginia. , Never Call Retreat (Garden City, N.Y., 1965), and Shelby Foote Shelby Dade Foote, Jr. (November 17 1916 – June 27 2005) was an American novelist and a noted historian of the American Civil War. With geographic and cultural roots in the Mississippi Delta alluvium, Foote's life and writing paralleled the radical shift from the agrarian , The Civil War, A Narrative (New York, 1958-1974), all give brief accounts of the events, and the first two explain that federal officials ordered the Union invasion to discourage meddling med·dle intr.v. med·dled, med·dling, med·dles 1. To intrude into other people's affairs or business; interfere. See Synonyms at interfere. 2. To handle something idly or ignorantly; tamper. in Texas affairs by Maximilian and French troops who occupied Mexico City. This same Union purpose was covered by Andrew Forest Muir, whose article "Dick Dowling and the Battle of Sabine Pass" in Civil War History, 4 (December 1958) was the most comprehensive scholarly account until the publication of the Cotham book. While confirming foreign policy reasons for the invasion, Cotham explains additional purposes: to arrange shipment of Texas cotton to New England textile mills; to take political control of the Lone Star State on behalf of Lincoln and the Republicans; and to stop transport of men, livestock, and war material to the Confederacy Confederacy, name commonly given to the Confederate States of America (1861–65), the government established by the Southern states of the United States after their secession from the Union. . In addition to covering Union and Confederate strategies, Cotham details the men, gunboats, forts, cannons, and tactics of the opposing forces and delivers a blow-by-blow account of the battle. The Union invasion force, originating in New Orleans and commanded by Major General William B. Franklin William Buel Franklin (February 27, 1823 – March 8, 1903) was a career U.S. Army officer and a Union Army general in the American Civil War. He rose to the rank of a corps commander in the Army of the Potomac, fighting in several notable early battles in the Eastern Theater. , entered Texas waters at Sabine Pass, a river channel on the Texas-Louisiana border. The Union plans were relatively simple: the army would land troops on the Texas shore; they would join with the gunboats to defeat the Confederate defenders at Fort Griffin; and then they would march north to Beaumont and west to Houston, where they would outflank the Confederates at Galveston and take control of Texas. But Union plans went completely wrong. General Franklin did not land his troops, the Union gunboats were defeated, and the Federal troop ships turned around and went back to New Orleans. This outcome, so revolting to northerners and joyous to southerners, was attributed to the incompetence of General Franklin and to the skill and heroism of Dick Dowling and forty-two other gunners at Fort Griffin. Firing six cannons, the Confederates destroyed two Union gunboats and inflicted about 350 casualties (killed, wounded, and captured) on Union naval forces, all without suffering a single casualty themselves. Cotham includes a bibliography, index, maps, photographs, illustrations, and troop rosters, as well as an extensive appraisal of Dick Dowling and the other Confederate gunners at Sabine Pass. He ascribes great importance to their actions. Borrowing a line from Jefferson Davis, the author refers to the engagement as "The Confederacy's Thermopylae," an allusion to the famous battle at which Greeks at Thermopylae fought to the last man in a desperate holding action against an invading Persian army, a holding action that led to an ultimate Greek victory. While some may not follow this allusion, most can agree that the Confederate victory at Sabine Pass did protect the Houston/ Galveston area from Union invasion and occupation until the end of the war in 1865. ROBERT J. ROBERTSON Lamar University |
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