Luck Of The Irish Saves Texas

As the sun rose over the southeastern corner of Texas on the morning of Sep. 8, 1863, four Yankee warships began the bombardment of the pitiful excuse for a fort at Sabine Pass.

Union strategists resolved in the summer of 1863 to compensate for the embarrassing New Year’s Day loss of Galveston with a surprise attack of their own. Rebel spies were spoon-fed false intelligence hinting at an enemy offensive to be launched from Shreveport, Louisiana. While the southerners concentrated their forces far to the north, the northerners secretly assembled a quartet of warships and 23 troop transports for a landing in southeast Texas at Sabine Pass.

With the Confederates effectively outflanked, the Union armada would deposit 20,000 soldiers at the narrow strait where the Sabine River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Beaumont, Houston and the hub of the state’s rail system would be under Yankee control by the end of the week.

The Rebel commander realized too late that the invasion expected at Marshall, where he had massed 10,000 troops, was coming instead at Sabine Pass. Certain that resistance by the tiny detachment would be futile, he telegraphed the Davis Guards to blow up Fort Sabine and run for their lives.

In spite of their valor in the hand-to-hand fighting at Galveston in January, the Irish Texans had earned little respect from their Confederate comrades. A fierce desire to prove themselves dictated a seemingly suicidal decision.

His orders were crystal clear, but Houston saloonkeeper Dick Dowling insisted upon putting the question to the 40 Guards. To a man the Emerald Isle Rebs chose to defend rather than to destroy the fort.

Nothing more than a huge mud hut minus a roof, the structure was a fortification in name only. Although the Guards spent the anxious hours leading up to the battle reinforcing the earthen walls with railroad tracks, they had no illusions about the protection the crude fort provided.

The 27-vessel task force left New Orleans on Sep. 4 with instructions to rendezvous at dawn on the 6th near the mouth of the Sabine. The crowded troop carriers contained the initial wave of 6,000 crack troops along with six artillery batteries, 50 wagons and hundreds of horses and mules.

One squad overshot the target and steamed almost to Galveston before noticing the navigational error. Consequently the fleet lost two days and the element of surprise before regrouping at the Sabine on the morning of Sept. 8.

Thinking the Johnny Rebs had wisely withdrawn after the hour and a half barrage, the confident Union admiral gave the go-ahead. The “Sachem” proceeded up the channel followed by the “Clifton” and a third warship as the flagship “Granite City” waited offshore.

Dowling calmly held his fire until the lead vessel came into range. Finally the Confederate cannons roared in deadly defiance sending a shell straight through the very heart of the “Sachem.” The crippled craft veered crazily off-course and ran aground in the shallow strait giving the Irish gunners an easy target.

As the “Sachem” took salvo after salvo from the smokeshrouded fort, the “Clifton” steamed to the rescue. A fantastic shot through its boiler instantly disabled the “Clifton” showering the terrified crew with scalding water. The third warship put itself out of commission in the soft Sabine mud.

When the captains of the three incapacitated ships hoisted white flags of surrender, the “Granite City” turned tail and set a course for New Orleans with the troop carriers close behind. The grand invasion of the westernmost member of the Confederacy was unceremoniously cancelled, and Texas was spared the carnage so tragically common throughout the South.

With incomparable nerve and a total of just 136 shots, the Davis Guards achieved a military miracle. Twenty-eight Union dead were buried that first night, with dozens more washing ashore for days afterward, and the Irish took 472 prisoners. Incredibly the Guards did not sustain a single casualty.

The debacle at Sabine Pass shook northern confidence in its naval supremacy and European faith in Washington’s conduct of the war. U.S. credit tightened overseas, and the dollar lost five percent of its value.

Across the South, spirits soared as the Davis Guards were hailed for their heroism. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, called their victory “more remarkable than the Battle of Thermopylae.”

Unlike the Spartans wiped out in that ancient skirmish, Dick Dowling and the boys whipped the latter-day Persians and lived to tell about it.

Bartee welcomes your comments and questions at barteehaile@gmail.com or P.O. Box 130011, Spring, TX 77393.