Sabine Pass

<p><b>Winner Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize Austin Civil War Round Table 2005</b></p> <p>In an 1882 speech former Confederate president Jefferson Davis made an exuberant claim: That battle at Sabine Pass was more remarkable than the battle at Thermopylae. Indeed Sabine Pass was the site of one of the most decisive Civil War battles fought in Texas. But unlike the Spartans who succumbed to overwhelming Persian forces at Thermopylae more than two thousand years before the Confederate underdogs triumphed in a battle that over time has become steeped in hyperbole. Providing a meticulously researched scholarly account of this remarkable victory <i>Sabine Pass</i> at last separates the legends from the evidence.</p> <p>In arresting prose Edward T. Cotham Jr. recounts the momentous hours of September 8 1863 during which a handful of Texans-almost all of Irish descent-under the leadership of Houston saloonkeeper Richard W. Dowling prevented a Union military force of more than 5000 men 22 transport vessels and 4 gunboats from occupying Sabine Pass the starting place for a large invasion that would soon have given the Union control of Texas.</p> <p><i>Sabine Pass</i> sheds new light on previously overlooked details such as the design and construction of the fort (Fort Griffin) that Dowling and his men defended and includes the battle report prepared by Dowling himself. The result is a portrait of a mythic event that is even more provocative when stripped of embellishment.</p>