Astounding Victory: The Davis Guard at Sabine Pass

                                                 Lt. Richard W. "Dick" Dowling

The Civil War produced a number of unlikely heroes on both sides.  One of the most unlikely was a twenty-five year old, auburn-haired Houston bartender with an engaging personality and a talent for artillery.   Like many of his fellow Irish immigrants, Richard W. “Dick” Dowling arrived in the United States with empty pockets and a burning ambition.  With just a sibling for a companion, he sought his fortune in Houston.  Luckily, he married a girl from a prominent Irish Houston family, Annie Odlum.  Annie’s father was Benjamin Odlum, a veteran of the Texas Revolution who held extensive land grants.  Dowling’s marriage helped raise him socially and financially within Houston’s growing Irish community.  His dashing looks and well-honed social graces made him a natural in the hospitality industry.  “The Shades,” the first bar he opened, was a big success.  In 1860, he sold it and opened “The Bank of Bacchus” directly across from the Harris County courthouse.  Houston lawyers and businessmen flocked to “The Bank,” enabling Dowling to start a bathing saloon and liquor importing business.  In his spare time, he created a very popular cocktail drink, “The Kiss Me Quick and Go.”  The recipe and origin of its curious name is not known.  In addition to providing drinks and billiards, “The Bank” served as a meeting hall for various military, political and social organizations, most notably the “Davis Guard” named after Confederate President Jefferson Davis.  The “Davies,” as they were called, were mostly Irish dockworkers with a penchant for fisticuffs, especially after they had a few.  One observer recalled, “They were men of mature years-very few were young-men of brawn and muscle, quiet in manner if treated right, but woe be to you if you offended one of them, you would hear from him in true Irish style.”

President Lincoln kept a wary eye on Texas and wanted an immediate Union presence in the Lone Star State.   The main reason was the worrisome presence of French troops in Mexico, who may decide to align Mexico with the Confederacy or reclaim territory lost during the Mexican War.  In addition, New England textile mills wanted to get their hands on East Texas cotton fields.  Lincoln stated to General Ulysses S. Grant, “I am greatly impressed with the importance of re-establishing the national authority in Western Texas as soon as possible.”  Based in New Orleans, Major General Nathaniel Banks dispatched an armada of four shallow draft gunboats and transport steamers filled with 4,000 troops to land ashore near Fort Griffin.  Under the command of General William B. Franklin, Union troops would capture the fort, cut off the rail line to Beaumont, and then proceed west to capture Houston and Galveston.

Numbering forty-seven men, the Guards were designated Company F, Texas Heavy Artillery.  Dick Dowling was commissioned the company’s lieutenant.  Far from the fighting east of the Sabine, they used their time drilling for any coastal incursions likely to come.  In time they became the best drilled heavy artillery unit in the Confederate Army.  Dowling and his men were assigned to an earthen fort of six guns named Fort Griffin near Sabine City, located at the mouth of the Sabine River.  Reinforced with railroad iron, the fort was ingeniously designed to provide a wide range of fire from the mouth of the river to just offshore from the fort, a 90 degree angle of deadly firepower.  Distance poles or markers were hammered into the river bottom to sight the guns.  One the eve of battle, Dowling told his men, “The Yankees are going to attack us and while I am personally in favor of sticking here and giving them a hot reception, I don’t feel like taking the responsibility of having you all killed or captured, so leave we shall do to you.”  One of the Guards replied, “Oh hell, Lieutenant, I’d rather fight than walk to Sabine City.”  Dowling enthusiastically responded, “That settles it. We’ll fight!”

At On September 8, 1863, at 3:40 PM, the Union gunboat fleet entered the Sabine River and began shelling Fort Griffin, the Guards stayed behind the fort’s walls until the gunboats came closer.  The gunboat fleet consisted of a former Staten Island ferry boat, U. S. S. Clifton, the propeller driven steamer, U. S. S. Sachem, and two captured blockade runners, U. S. S. Arizona and U. S. S. Granite City.  Upon reaching the distance markers, the Sachem received a brutal pounding.  A well placed shot took out her boiler, leaving her, and much the crew, dead in the water.  The Clifton received the same treatment.  A shot took out her tiller ropes, leaving her without the ability to steer.  The well-drilled Guards fired one hundred seven times in thirty minutes - approximately one shot fired in just slightly over a minute.  Both vessels ran aground and were forced to surrender.  The Arizona and Granite City turned around the left the river.  Without gunboat protection, Franklin and his troops were was forced to retreat back to New Orleans in disgrace.  In a remarkable turn of events, a Union invasion force was bested by a Texas bartender and forty-seven Irish dockworkers.  Without suffering a single casualty, the Guards captured two shot up gunboats and three hundred prisoners. 

The Davis Guard became overnight heroes of the Confederacy, especially in the wake of Confederate defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg the previous summer.  Major General John Bankhead Magruder, the Commander of the Department of Texas, visited Fort Griffin shortly after the battle to personally extend his congratulations.  Each guard member received a medal made out of a stamped Mexican coin and supported by a green ribbon; the only medals awarded to Confederate troops during the Civil War.  

After the war, Dowling returned to Houston and “The Bank.”  The “Hero of Sabine Pass” became a local celebrity, drawing hundreds of customers to his establishment.  Union occupation soldiers flocked to “The Bank” to catch a glimpse of the legendary Dowling.  One Union officer jokingly paid Dowling for his drink with a captured Confederate bill.  Without hesitation, Dowling accepted it and even gave the officer change.  Dowling also engaged in numerous charitable activities in the Houston area.  Unfortunately, he fell victim to a yellow fever epidemic in 1867.  Before his untimely death at 29, he opened "The Bank" to suffering yellow fever victims, converting it into a hospital.

Today, the site of the Battle of Sabine Pass is memorialized with a stirring monument and historical markers outlining the battle.  The City of Sabine Pass was incorporated decades ago into present day Port Arthur.  No trace of the fort remains today.  A statue was erected in 1905 at Houston’s Hermann Park to honor Dowling but was recently removed, crated and stored in a Houston warehouse.   Port Arthur refuses to let the statue be relocated to the battlefield site.  Unless it’s sold to the highest bidder at auction, placed in a cemetery, or dispatched to a museum willing to accept it, don’t expect it to surface anytime soon. 

Out of sight, out of mind, so goes Texas history.     

Check out Edward T. Cotham Jr.’s fine book, “Sabine Pass, The Confederacy’s Thermopylae"

                                      Houston's Dowling Statue Before Removal

Boone's Redemption

Major Hannibal H. Boone

Acting Master Thomas Lombard Peterson beheld a curious sight as he docked his gunboat, U. S. S. Diana.  A squad of Confederate cavalry, under a flag of truce, had escorted two women to be ferried across Berwick Bay into Union held territory.  The gunboat would be their transport.  In the past, Peterson’s encounters with Confederate troops had been at a comfortable distance, especially after he shelled them along the river bank.  Led by Major Hannibal H. Boone, this group of rebels appeared different - a hard-looking bunch dressed in nondescript, homespun uniforms and wide-brimmed hats adorned with single stars.  Their weapons consisted of shotguns, carbines, Colt revolvers and oversized Bowie knives.  They stared at him like hungry coyotes on a lame jackrabbit.  Unmoved at their presence, a brash Peterson couldn’t resist a verbal exchange.

 

“I have been under the impression, that when a man put on a military uniform, and donned the garb of a soldier, he intended to fight,” he stated.

 

Boone replied, “I have thought it that way myself.”

 

Peterson continued,”You Confederates don’t practice that.  I’ve been over several times to try you, but at the bursting of the first shell you all stampeded.”

 

Unimpressed, Boone asserted, “You have never stampeded me or my men yet.”

 

“You are a new man then, just come in?” Peterson inquired.

 

“Yes sir!  I have just come in today,” Boone answered.

 

Peterson continued badgering the major.  “Well, you mean to say that you are something better than you’ve had there before?”

 

“No sir, I mean to say nothing of the sort.  But I’ll tell you what I mean, and that is that you can’t stampede my men with one shell-nor a dozen shells-only that and nothing more,”  Boone quipped.

 

Peterson took the women on board, telling one of his officers he would “return soon and see if they fought as well as they talked.”

 

Overhearing him, the Major Boone shot back, “Come ahead! We’ll try and interest you.”

 

The Confederates returned to their camp, no doubt eager to face Patterson again on his return.      This time, the Union skipper would face a tougher foe eager for redemption.

 

In 1862, the 13th Texas Cavalry Battalion was organized by Colonel Edwin Waller upon his return from the New Mexico Campaign.  Still under Brigadier General Henry H. Sibley’s inept command, Waller followed him to the bayous of South Louisiana.  The 13th’s arrival did not get off to a glorious start.  At Bonnet Carre, on the Mississippi River, near New Orleans, seven regiments of Union troops, on four steamboats, trapped the Texans on three sides.  Their only escape was through a near impregnable swamp by foot, not horseback.  Humiliation ensued when Waller’s men were forced to abandon their horses and saddles to ecstatic Yankees or kill their mounts outright by slashing their throats.   After slogging miles through bayou country, Waller reassembled his men, now referred to as the “Cane Cart Cavalry” by their jeering Louisiana comrades. 

 

During Mid-March, 1863, Union forces, under Major General Nathaniel Banks, had firm control over New Orleans and its surrounding suburbs.  Located in the Lafourche District, on the Atchafalaya River, Brashear City (now present day Morgan City) was their furthest, northwest point of occupation.  Union troops, under German-born Brigadier General Godfrey Weitzel, kept a wary eye on rebel cavalry patrolling outside his lines.  In addition to his troops, Weitzel had the help of steam-powered gunboats that patrolled Berwick Bay, Grand Lake, and the lower portions of the Atchafalaya River.   The gunboats’ large guns and menacing appearance had a terrifying effect on Confederate troops, who often fled instead of directly confronting them.  The Confederate Commander of Western Louisiana, Major General Richard Taylor, was contemptuous toward the gunboats, calling their actions “snipe-hunting with twelve-pounders.”   Anxious to launch offensive operations, with the ultimate goal of retaking New Orleans, he was dismayed at the fear his Louisiana cavalry had toward the gunboats.  Taylor wanted them captured and added to his small flotilla gathering on Grand Lake and Bayou Teche.  “When gunboats come up those small rivers,” he told his troops, “instead of running off, capture them!”  Writing to his cavalry officers, Taylor further stated, “If you cannot do it, I will send men who can.”  The men he sent were the 13th Texas Cavalry.  

 

Like many Union gunboats, the Diana was a former Confederate merchant steamer captured and then converted into a gunboat and transport for the Union Army.  Partially armored, the side-wheeler was useful in patrolling Louisiana’s narrow bayous and meandering rivers.  Like the other half dozen gunboats patrolling the Louisiana bayous, the Diana went beyond protecting Union troops and taking on Confederate vessels.  Using barges towed from his stern, Peterson would also relieve plantations of their sugar cane.  Like cotton, sugar was in big demand.  Money received for confiscated crops were divided between the Diana’s officers and sailors. 

 

Major Boone and his Texans watched the comings and goings of the Diana; they decided to lay a trap.  Anxious to take on the Texans, Peterson decided to depart from his normal patrol route by steaming up the Atchafalaya toward Pattersonville.  Sixty-nine volunteer, infantry sharpshooters were on board to provide additional firepower.  They would soon wish they stayed at their camp 

 

Twenty-nine year old, Tennessee native, Hannibal Honestus Boone, was a lawyer in Hempstead before the war.  He rose to the rank of major and became Waller’s second in command.  In time, Boone became a feared cavalryman, best avoided in a direct fight.  With the assistance of Texas’ famed Val Verde Battery and the Arizona Cavalry Battalion, Boone arrayed 300 men on both sides of the river hidden in the vegetation.  All were crack shots.  

 

The Diana never had a chance.  Cannon, rifle, and pistol fire riddled the gunboat, killing or wounding a quarter of the 120 men onboard.  Peterson was shot dead through the heart.  Damaged from the gunfire, the Diana could not escape.  After striking her colors, joyous Texans swam over to claim their prize.  They recoiled in horror upon seeing the blood and gore spattered across the deck and walls.  “Every berth was cut to splinters,” wrote a Union survivor.  “Chairs, tables, knives and forks, books, broken glass and china, shattered panels, blood-wet beds, and pools of gore-and the dead and wounded-were everywhere.”  Even six-shooters were used with great effect,” reported a Texas captain.

 

The 13th had their redemption and a gunboat for Taylor’s small flotilla.  The Diana served the Confederate side at the battles of Bisland and Irish Bend.  Running out of navigable waterways, before an advancing Union army, she was scuttled a month after her capture.   

Duplicitous Trail Drives

John Chisum

During the Civil War, there were instances on both sides of profit replacing patriotism.  The sudden lack of markets and severe income loss led some to circumvent government authority for new business opportunities, especially if the authority was on the losing side.  Late in the war, cotton was always a hot commodity in illegal trading with the enemy.  In West Texas, a different commodity offered a second monetary source:  Cattle.

After Confederate forces were driven from Southeast New Mexico, Union forces occupied the region and established an Indian reservation near their newly constructed Fort Sumner.  The reservation was built on an arid, uninhabitable stretch called the Bosque Redondo.  Into this dreadful landscape, the U.S Army, under the firm command of General James Carlton, crammed members of the Navajo and Mescalero Apache tribes.  During the months to come, Bosque Redondo would prove to be more of a prison camp hellhole than a reservation.  To begin with, the Mescalero and Navajo had fought each other for decades, and weren’t about to make a lasting peace.  The dry weather wouldn’t allow sustained crop production.  Being that it was in a desert, there was no wood to make fires and only a brackish trickle of water to drink.  To make matters worse, the Comanches raided the reservation and stole the Navajo’s horses.  A stable food source was quickly needed to feed the reservation and the Union forts in New Mexico.

In 1864, Union contractors James Patterson and William Franks contacted Texas ranchers to arrange cattle drives to Fort Sumner and Union held El Paso.  They carried plenty of cash to make their purchases.  With Confederate markets cut off by the loss of the Mississippi and Confederate currency on the wane, it was difficult not to accept their offers.  Famed Texas Ranger James “Buck” Barry reported to his superiors, “It might be well to inform you that we have five men here under arrest that say they were hired by one Patterson in New Mexico to drive beef from our frontier.”  The Texas Third Frontier District reported a drive of 1,000 to 1,500 cattle heading west over their district.   The most notable of these unlawful ranchers was famed cattle baron John Chisum.  Although he supplied the Confederate Army with 4,000 head of cattle, Chisum sought approval from the Texas governor to move his vast herds from Denton County to Concho County in West Texas, a remote area near the New Mexico border and conveniently too remote for Confederate authorities.  In his book, “From the Cow Camp to the Pulpit,” one of Chisum’s ranch hands, M.C. Smith, wrote about the assembly of a cattle herd destined for Fort Sumner in September 1864 – seven months before the end of the war.  After the war, Smith went to work for Patterson.

The Texas government had few men and funds to patrol West Texas.  Most defensive efforts were focused on the Texas coast where Union amphibious operations were a constant threat.  Ironically, the Native Americans that plagued Confederate Texas also kept Union troops in New Mexico occupied and away from the more populated East Texas.

Though their loyalties became more blurred toward the war’s final month, Texas ranchers, nevertheless, had a keen eye toward the future.  In 1866, the Goodnight-Loving Trail was established to drive Texas herds into New Mexico.  The great cattle drives to Kansas followed shortly.  Though traitorous by law, it’s still good to know these unlawful Texas cattle drives went to feed hungry Navaho children.

"Let Us Charge the Cannon !"

Colonel Hinche Mabry

General Sterling Price had all the evidence he needed – a Yankee attack was coming. Horribly spattered with the blood of his comrade, the scout before him needed little to convince the portly Missourian. Just southwest of Iuka, Mississippi, he had encountered a Federal cavalry detachment on the San Jacinto Road. Price sent an infantry brigade, under General Louis Hebert, to counter the threat. A Union army, under the command of General William Rosecrans, was indeed marching steadily toward Price from the southeast. At the same time, a second army was advancing on him from the northwest. Under the overall command of General Ulysses S. Grant, both armies were executing a classic pincers move to trap Price in Iuka. Price would have to move quickly to avoid the trap. Hebert sent the Third Texas Cavalry regiment out ahead to find and screen Rosecrans’s advance – an overwhelming task at best.

The Third Texas Cavalry was actually the Third Dismounted Texas Cavalry. Consisting mostly of planters from Northeast Texas and armed prodigiously with shotguns, the Third had shed their mounts to become infantry. Their commander felt there were too many cavalry units in Mississippi. Encamped at the railroad junction of Corinth, the dismounted Texans learned the rudiments of infantry drill during the spring of 1862. They suffered staggering losses from disease and Corinth’s foul water supply. Fortunately for their health, but not their moral, the Confederates were forced to evacuate Corinth before a massive Federal offensive. Under the command of General Braxton Bragg, the Confederates later retook the initiative by invading Kentucky. Sterling Price was left behind to guard Mississippi. The newly appointed commander of the Vicksburg, Mississippi garrison, General Earl Van Dorn, requested Price to join him and invade West Tennessee while Bragg was in Kentucky. Price would have to get out of Iuka before joining Van Dorn.

Rosecran’s deployed his regiments to meet Hebert’s brigade. In the center of the line, directly in front of the Texans, was the 11th Ohio Artillery. The Federals were aligned along the south slope of a ravine. No sooner had the 3rd Texas descended into the ravine, when a shower of canister shot forced them to hit the dirt. Sgt. W. P. Helm recalled:

“The roaring artillery, the rattle of the musketry, the hailstorm of grape and ball were mowing us down like grain before we could locate from whence it came. We were trapped; there could be no retreat, and certain death was in our advance. We fell prostrate to the ground.”

The certain death was a gruesome decapitation if you stood up. There was only one solution - charge the battery and take the guns. With a rebel yell, the Third got to its feet and charged into the Union line. To the right of the battery, the 48th Indiana, a regiment consisting of green recruits, bolted to the rear when the Texans hit their line. Their brigade commander, Colonel John B. Sanborn, ordered them to stand and fight, drawing his pistol and shooting two who didn’t. The regiment directly behind the 48th, the 16th Ohio, was swept up by the 48th’s rout – a domino effect. The battery, however, kept many of the Texans back. To make matters worse, they were being fired on by their fellow Confederates behind them. After three attempts, the Third’s Colonel Hinche Mabry rallied his men for a fourth. “Boys if we are to die, let it be by Yankee bullets, not by our friends,” he cried. “So let us charge the cannon.” The Ohioans fought with an unmatched fury. Helm recalled, “Sword and bayonet were crossed. Muskets, revolvers knives, ramrods, gun swabs – all mingled in the death dealing fray."  Only a handful of the fifty four artillerymen were still standing when their battery was captured. One of the dead was found holding the bridles of his battery horses with a firm death grip. The horses were dead as well. Respectfully, the Texans released the survivors, but kept their six cannons. Of the 388 men in the Third Texas, 22 were killed and 74 were wounded - the highest loss the regiment suffered in battle. The Third continued serving in Mississippi until the end of the Civil War. They eventually regained their mounts and became part of the famed Sul Ross cavalry brigade. The brave charge of the Third Texas held up Rosecran’s advance and helped Price make his escape.

General Polecat

Prince Camile De Polignac

During the Civil War, most of the generals on both sides were American born and received their training from U.S. military academies.  In a few cases, they came from foreign countries and had served in their country’s army.  German officers received experience through a failed revolution against the Prussian monarchy.  French and British officers served due to a sense of adventure and an earnest support for the Union or Confederate causes. Oddly enough, one of them commanded a brigade of Texans. 

Camille Armand Jules Marie de Polignac or the Prince de Polignac was a French nobleman through and through – something right out of a Hollywood script.  Born on February 16, 1832, his father served as a minister in the French court of Charles X.  Young Polignac served as a lieutenant in the French army during the Crimean War.  After his service, he traveled to Central America to study geography.  He also studied music and was known to break into verse when the mood suited him.  Not one to let a military career languish, Polignac offered his services to the Confederacy.  He served as a staff officer in the commands of both Braxton Bragg and P.G.T. Beauregard. 

What General Polignac had in dash and discipline would be sorely lacking in his command.  His brigade included some of the worst regiments to come out of Texas.  The 22^nd Texas Cavalry, the 31^st Texas Cavalry, and the 34^th Texas Cavalry came from North Texas counties that were opposed to secession before the war.   Originally from the South’s Border States, they were subsistence farmers that had little use for slaves.  Of the nineteen Texas counties that voted against secession, eight of them were in North Texas.  Needless to say, they were not thrilled about fighting for the Confederacy, preferring instead to be fighting Comanches near their homesteads.  Union threats from Kansas and Missouri led to their deployment in the Indian Territory (now present day Oklahoma), a place with little to sustain troops and a fragile moral.  There were shortages of everything: clothes, shelter, weapons, food, medicine, and discipline.  They also had to fight alongside Confederate Indian regiments whom they had little regard for.  To make matters worse, many of them succumbed to illness and were forced to go on extended leave, provided they hadn’t died already before departing.  Desertions increased and mutiny became a greater threat than the Union Army.  The brigade saw some action at Shirley’s Ford and Newtonia in Missouri, but did little to reinforce their lagging reputation.  General Thomas Hindman, their district commander, finally had enough of this ill-disciplined band of Texans; he took away their horses.  Now dismounted, and feeling like teenagers barred from a homecoming dance, they were forced to fight on foot.

Unreliable as cavalry, they were even more so as infantry.  After withdrawing from Missouri, the 31^st nearly mutinied when they arrived at Fort Smith, Arkansas.  Some stability returned with the arrival of the 15^th Texas Infantry, tough farm boys from Central Texas with a strong sense of cause.  Ordered back to the Indian Territory, the dismounted Texans were forced to endure one of the Civil War’s worst marches.  In January, 1863, many of them died from exposure as they trudged along in frigid temperatures with moldy corn meal to sustain them.  Unionist guerillas, led by Texas Unionist Martin Hart, attacked their supply wagons.  Alfred T. Howell of the 34^th Texas recalled:

“By day, I limped along in my rundown boots, holes wearing into my feet.  At night my feet swelled and I could not stand.  Men died every day.  They laid themselves down.  They would not move and they died.  Men died on the wagons.  From Fort Smith to the Mouth of the Kiamichi where we camped, our trail was a long graveyard.  The bones of dead horses and mules, with destroyed and castaway wagons, would have made almost a turnpike.”

During the following spring, the dismounted Texans marched to Shreveport.  General Richard Taylor, Commander of Confederate forces in Louisiana, was not impressed with his new brigade.  Even more so when he discovered that many of them had no weapons.  Training was needed, and a lot of it.  Two of the regiments were placed in camps of instruction for schooling in infantry tactics.

In October, 1863, Polignac assumed command of the brigade, but his men couldn’t pronounce his name, much less comprehend his noble origin.  They came up with an easier name to pronounce – Polecat.  Fortunately, the prince took it all in good humor.  During a skirmish at Vidalia, Polignac stood up in his stirrups and exhorted his men to “Follow me! Follow me! You call me ‘Polecat,’ I will show you whether I am ‘Polecat’ or ‘Polignac!’ “He showed them the later.  Though forced to retire, he brought back a precious haul of four hundred cattle, horses and mules.  Further redemption came at the Battle of Mansfield in 1864, a key turning point during the Union’s Red River Campaign.  Polignac’s Texans assisted in outflanking the Union line and routing it off the field. 

For his actions at Mansfield, Polignac was promoted to Major General.  His replacement, Colonel James Harrison, presented him with a horse.  The Frenchman promised he would ride his noble charger across Texas after the war to visit his old brigade. Major General Polignac was later sent back to his native France on a mission to drum up support for the Confederacy.  The war ended before he could complete his mission.  He served again in the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War.  He died in 1921, the last surviving Confederate General of the Civil War.  His brigade returned to Texas where they were discharged in May, 1865.

No doubt glad to be returning home, they were no less glad to be returning with honorable service records.  Under a dapper Frenchman, Polignac’s Texas Brigade helped save the day at Mansfield and prevent a Union invasion of Texas.   

Masonic Saboteurs

C.S.S. Hunley

Since the discovery of the C.S.S. Hunley, a sunken Confederate submarine near Charleston Harbor, a growing body of research is emerging on the Confederacy’s secret weapons.  Many of these weapons were designed by a surprising array of Southern professional men; those with a knack for finance, military engineering and subterfuge.  One of the most prominent was an unlikely Texas resident that few would know about until decades later.

Prior to the Civil War, Ohio native Edgar C. Singer was a gunsmith in the tiny port village of Lavaca just off the Texas coast.  He came from a family of noted inventors.  Singer’s uncle, Isaac Merritt Singer, invented the first commercially successful sewing machine.  After Texas seceded, Singer enlisted in the Confederate Army and was assigned to a coastal battery. 

With many young Texans being shipped off to eastern battlefields, the defense of the Texas coast rested upon older, middle-aged men.  Captain Daniel Shea’s artillery company, which included Singer, was positioned to help defend the Matagorda Bay area.  Among its company roster were professional, middle-aged men from Lavaca: jewelers, gunsmiths, merchants, doctors, attorneys, carpenters, and steam engineers.  Despite their diverse backgrounds, they had one common affiliation - the local Masonic lodge. 

Shea’s company received their baptism of fire when a Union fleet sailed into Matagorda Bay and shelled Lavaca.  Seeing their homes bombarded led to a sustained outrage that would bring fear and grief to the Union Navy; they were determined to prevent another bombardment.

Shortly after the Union fleet departed, Singer began experimenting with underwater torpedoes or mines as they are called today.   The experiments proved successful, but required men and government support to deploy them on a massive scale.  In addition, the use of hidden explosives was considered a dishonorable form of warfare, more of a criminal act than an act of war.  Nevertheless, the Confederacy possessed little in the way of a standing navy and had to rely on unorthodox methods to defend her coasts and rivers.  For much less than the cost of a trained crew and a steam-powered warship, a small torpedo could fit the bill quite nicely.  

Singer’s new mine was successfully tested on a half submerged wreck before Captain Shea.  Impressed by the result, Singer was ordered to present his creation to the Texas district commander, Major General John Magruder.

Based in Houston, Magruder, or “Prince John” as he was referred to by friends, was no stranger to the use of unorthodox military tactics and weapons.  During the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, his use of such tactics helped stall the Union advance on Richmond.  When Singer blew up an old scow in Buffalo Bayou, an excited Magruder ordered torpedoes for the defense of Galveston and Matagorda.  

Small in size, but awesome in delivery, the Singer torpedo was a metal canister filled with gunpowder and topped with a spring-loaded rod, somewhat similar in appearance to a butter churn.  Anchored 3 feet below the water’s surface, the torpedo was set off when a vessel’s hull struck the rod.  Like a pinball machine, the rod slammed into 2 percussion caps that set off the gunpowder.  In a terrifying flash, a heavily armed warship could be sent straight to the bottom.

In early February 1863, Singer travelled to Richmond to demonstrate his invention.  After convincing the Confederate government of the torpedo’s potential, he was awarded a patent and authorization to form a company of twenty five men.  Christened “Singer’s Submarine Corps.,” most of the company consisted of Singer’s fellow masons.  From his Lavaca workshop, Singer began cranking out his deadly devices while his company fanned out across the Confederacy to deploy them.  On the Yazoo River in Mississippi, they hit pay dirt; a Union ironclad, U.S.S. Baron De Kalb, struck two Singer mines and sank.

Singer’s company wasn’t limited to torpedoes; they supervised and assisted in the construction of submarines and torpedo boats.  At the port of Mobile, Singer met three New Orleans inventors: James McClintock, George Baxter and Horace Hunley.  The three had experimented with submarines in New Orleans until Union forces captured their city.  Plans for a new submarine were drawn up to be used against Union blockading vessels off the gulf coast.  Singer offered to put up a third of the $15,000 construction cost.  Named after Horace Hunley, the submarine was armed with a spar torpedo activated by Singer’s patented, spring-loaded trigger.  On the night of February 17, 1864, the C.S.S. Hunley sank the Union gunboat U.S.S.Housatonic, the first vessel in history to be sunk by a submarine.  The Hunley, however, failed to make the return trip and was lost along with its crew.

Captured documents in Mississippi revealed his torpedo operations to Admiral Porter, the commander of the Mississippi River Fleet.  Having lost two ironclads to torpedoes, Porter ordered Singer and his company to be “shot on sight.”  That didn’t deter Singer, whose Lavaca-made torpedoes sank another one of his ironclads, the U.S.S. Eastport on the Red River.   

Though twenty-seven Union ships were sunk by torpedoes, Singer’s creations couldn’t fully deter Union Navy.  His company spent their final days mining the James River near Richmond and the Texas coast.  To avoid prosecution for war crimes, most of the Singer documents were destroyed by its members.  After Texas was surrendered, Singer and his fellow Masons signed parole papers and retired to obscurity in Lavaca (now Port Lavaca).  Most of their activities are lost to history but certainly not their impact.

The Deadly Diary of Ephraim S. Dodd

The Grave of Ephraim Shelby Dodd

“Slow and fiendish murder,” wrote Chaplain Robert F. Bunting.  “He met his fate like a hero: there was not a muscle moved, nor an indication of fear.”  What the chaplain was referring to was the hanging of a Texas cavalryman.  More unfortunate than the tragic execution itself, were the events leading up to it.

Ephraim Shelby Dodd was born in Kentucky and moved to Texas in 1857.  Like many young Texans, he dreamed of a better life, but got caught up in the secession fever sweeping the state.  His sense of duty led him to enlist in a Confederate cavalry regiment, the famed 8^th Texas Cavalry or Terry’s Texas Rangers.  Dodd served with the Rangers in all of their campaigns from September, 1861 until December, 1863.  During his service, he kept a diary – one of the few firsthand accounts of Ranger daily life.  Unlike his rowdy comrades, Dodd didn’t indulge in drinking and cards.  Instead, he flirted with every single woman in Northern Georgia.  “I made the acquaintance of Miss Maggie Ezzell, Miss Mattie Sommers, Miss Fannie Summers and Miss Mollie Robert and enjoyed myself with them finely,” he wrote.  Details of the enjoyment were not provided.

Among their many duties, the Rangers most often served as scouts and pickets.  Sometimes the scouting took place behind enemy lines or in areas where pro-Union citizens resided.  In East Tennessee, many of the residents were subsistence farmers with little use for slaves and Confederate authority.  Many joined the Union Army or became guerrillas, more commonly referred to as Bushwhackers.  Supply columns were ambushed, telegraph lines cut and bridges burned to hamper the Confederate war effort.  Confederate authorities responded with arrests and executions of suspected Bushwhackers.  In one instance, several accused Bushwhackers were hanged and left dangling along a railroad track, a clear warning for any would be saboteur.  Feelings grew harder among Secessionists and Unionists as the war progressed.

A cavalryman was only as good as the horse he rode.  Finding a trusty steed in a war-ravaged region could take days, if not weeks.  Some had to become infantrymen or travel away from their units to purchase new mounts.  After losing his horse to a broken leg, Dodd sought a replacement in Sevier County near Knoxville, an area teeming with Union sentiment.  After Confederate General James Longstreet lifted his siege of Knoxville, his army corps left the area.  Union forces moved in and left Dodd trapped behind enemy lines.  He sought refuge among local residents, but few would take him in.  The few that did, however, had taken Union loyalty oaths.  They could be arrested for treason and have their property seized for aiding the enemy.  Therefore, Dodd couldn’t stick around for very long.  With the help of local citizens, Union Home Guard units closed in.  He was arrested and taken to Knoxville.

Christmas was spent in a frigid jail cell.  Dodd wrote, “Receiving one-quarter pound bread a day and about one pound beef, no wood hardly-freezing and starving by inches.” Too make matters worse, he was wearing a captured Union jacket and pants, tell tale signs that he might be a Bushwhacker. A common tactic, among Bushwhackers, was to don captured uniforms then infiltrate enemy lines.  In the process, pickets were killed and outposts were overrun.  As a result, Union General John G. Foster, Commander of the Ohio, ordered all captured Confederate soldiers shot if they were wearing Union uniforms.  Further damning evidence came from an unlikely source – his diary.  Amidst all the petty dalliances, Union picket locations were noted.  It was all the evidence a Union tribunal needed; Dodd was sentenced to be hanged for espionage.  Being a Mason, he sought the help of both fellow members and Union chaplains to secure his release.  In addition, he was wearing a wide brimmed Texas hat (adorned with a Ranger badge) and a Mexican serape, common attire among Texas troopers and proof that he wasn’t in disguise when captured.  All to no avail, Dodd was to be the unfortunate victim of a vicious internecine struggle in the remote hills of East Tennessee; a struggle where burned out farms, destitute refuges and tit-for-tat executions were commonplace.  He was clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

The execution took place on January 8, 1864.  Dodd’s last words were “I die innocent of the charge against me.”  In a farcical twist, the rope broke after Dodd was dropped.  Upon regaining consciousness and a somewhat upright composure, he was hanged again.  His diary was appropriated by the lieutenant of a New Hampshire regiment.  Fifty years later, the diary was purchased for the Texas State Archives from a New York resident who came into its possession when the officer died. 

Chaplain Bunting’s account of the Dodd hanging was printed in the “Houston Telegraph.”  No doubt fueled by the account, Terry’s Texas Rangers would battle on with renewed fury.

A Plea for Sanity!

With all the recent upheaval over Confederate flags and monuments, I’ve provided an essay on the matter written by Cynthia Harriman, President of the Texas Civil War Museum.  I would encourage all Texans to read the following and think before they support the destruction of statutes and monuments.  It’s sad that a ghastly act, committed by a very disturbed, 21 year old boy, has led to such visceral reactions.  They will only lead to more hate and resentment in the future.

PUBLIC OUTCRY

In the Defense of American History

By Cynthia Loveless Harriman

There seems to be an outcry to destroy all things Confederate.  The flag has different meanings as to what it stands for that stem from whom is carrying it, who is looking at it and where it is, and this is likely not to change.   There have been widespread reactions and over reactions to ban book jackets, paintings, historical reenactments and online games to name a few.  The most outrageous suggestion was offered by the Memphis mayor to dig up the graves of General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife out of the city cemetery. Messing with graves is a special kind of hate that does not belong in civil society.   However, this memo is not about them or the flag.  It is about Confederate Monuments and was inspired after reading a column written by a Kerry Dougherty of Virginia.

 Both the North and the South are heavily dotted with huge chunks of granite as a memorial to those who died in a bloody civil war.  There is no outcry to destroy the ones of the Union, only those of the Confederates.   A young man living in Texas in 1861 would not hesitate to go to war.  His father would have fought in the Mexican War, his grandfather in the Texas Revolution, his great grandfather in the War of 1812 and his great, great grandfather in the American Revolution.  He would have dishonored the family name to not join the military and protect his homeland.  Some Confederate soldiers supported slavery, and some did not—just as some Union soldiers were abolitionists and most were not.  In Texas, 90,000 men would serve the CSA, and there were nowhere near 90,000 slave owners in the state.  All of the monuments represent a supreme sacrifice to a most pivotal time in our nation's young history. 

 People of the mid -19th century lived in a much smaller world than today.  Everyone and everything they loved was close by.  Their state was to them a sovereign place.  All many Southerners knew was someone from someplace else was coming to destroy their lives and homes.  Many locations saw the war take away everyone and everything they loved.  When all was lost, all that was left was one's honor.  The people were honorable, living in their time.  And this time is a confounding paradox.

 After the war, the state governments in the North and the Grand Army of the Republic quickly erected monuments.  In the South, monuments rose more slowly. These monuments were erected by women who did not want their husbands, sons, fathers and brothers to be forgotten.  They had died on the battlefield and were buried in mass unmarked graves.  The families did not get to bury their loved ones.  They did not get to say the final good-bye and had no grave on which to place a tombstone or flowers.  The monuments were erected by broken-hearted people who were grieving, and they wanted their loved ones to be remembered.  To remember the dead, and remember them well, was the hallmark of the Victorian society.   So the survivors sponsored fundraisers, many bake sales, raising pennies at a time.  The women, then believed to be the weaker sex, were wildly successful in their efforts.  It may have been one of the first, widespread women's movements which in itself validates the reason to keep them. 

It is easy for those who have not studied the war for themselves to say it was just about slavery.   However, students of the war know it is far more complicated than that. It was about the economy of slavery. True, had there not been slavery, there may not have been a war.  Had there been modern farm machinery there would not have been a need for slaves. But this was a primitive time.  The entire country, both North and South, participated wholly in the slave economy.  Had it not been for the cotton exports after the Revolutionary War, America could have well been a third world country. Cotton was the cash cow, and it was labor intensive. America was producing 3/4 of the world's cotton.  Cotton was the only commodity ever given a name by Wall Street—King Cotton.  Cotton was the single largest export and NYC was the financial capital of the vital product. Northern slave ships brought the slaves to our shores with great profits for Rhode Island investors.  Connecticut insurance companies insured the plantations. The countries greatest asset was the four million enslaved African Americans with a value then of 3.5 billion producing 4.5 million bales of cotton. There just simply were not enough people living in the country at this time to keep up with the demand for this time consuming product called cotton.  In the South, 25% of the population were slave owners—leaving 75% who were not.   However, 100% of the households were affected by the war.  This is the story we should be telling and not erasing. There is plenty of blame and shame to go around, but there is also much pride and grit too.  Together, through the good and despite the bad, people in the North and South, both slave and free, along with immigrants and Native Americans, created the best nation on earth.  There is room for all to be proud together that our ancestors did this for us. 

Monuments do not endorse or promote racism. Monuments do not attack or kill.  They stand silent and graceful.    They are a reminder for us to stop and reflect. They are beautiful public art, designed and crafted by artisans. If the monuments are torn down, then we lose much more than just a chunk of granite.

Hell Post

General Thomas Churchill 

    

Few Civil War forts could match the miserable conditions at Arkansas Post.  Located on the Arkansas River, about 25 miles from its mouth on the Mississippi, the crude Confederate fortress was built at the site of an old French trading post.  Despite its strategic location in the rich Arkansas River Valley, nearby swamps were a welcome host for disease, mosquitoes, and insufferable humidity.  The fort hospital was crammed daily with the sick and dying.  “We are losing men every day,” wrote Texan Robert Hodges. “It looks as though we are all doomed to die in this detestable country.  We can hear the dead march nearly all the times of the day and sometimes at night.”  Lieutenant Flavius Perry wrote, “This country was never made I don’t think for white people to live in, nothing but frogs and crawfish can live here long.”

General Theophilus Holmes, the nearsighted, deaf commander of Confederate forces in Arkansas, ordered the construction of the fort in September, 1862.  Built mostly by impressed slaves, the fort featured three Dahlgren cannons removed from a Confederate gunboat.  The Dahlgren’s casemates were constructed of oak logs and railroad iron.  Outside the fort were 720 yards of trenches manned by an Arkansas battery, a motley collection of Arkansas conscripts, and two Texas brigades.  The Texans were a diverse collection of infantry and dismounted cavalry regiments commanded by Colonel James Deshler and Colonel Robert Garland.  Dismounted cavalry were actually cavalrymen ordered (due to infantry shortages) to send their mounts back home and become infantry - a huge dishonor among the Texans, who generally preferred service on horseback rather than as a lowly “mud slogger.” General Thomas Churchill, a former postmaster general from Little Rock, commanded the Arkansas Post garrison.  In honor of Thomas Hindman, Arkansas’ fiery Confederate general, the fort was christened Fort Hindman.
 

The garrison, however, gave it a second christening - “Fort Donelson No. 2,” a reference to the fallen bastion in Tennessee.   Most of them realized they couldn’t hold out against a determined, overwhelming assault.  There was no avenue of escape, no Confederate naval presence on the river, and no ready source of reinforcements.  General Holmes’s written order to “hold out until help arrived or until all are dead” inspired little, if any, confidence.  One Texan wrote: “Had the fort been built anywhere else, it could doubtless have been held successfully against a large force, but there was not a place on the Arkansas River less capable of successful defense against a large force than Arkansas Post, but we were stationed there with orders to hold the place against all hazards.”                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                         

By 1863, Union generals began to view Arkansas Post as a growing threat to their plans to conquer the Mississippi.  Fort Hindman units attacked Union steamboats with artillery rounds.  One Union supply boat, the Blue Wing, was forced to surrender – a real boon for the supply strapped Confederates.  Illinois politician turned general, John McClernand, saw an opportunity for personal gain.  With a presidential authorization from Lincoln in hand, he appropriated the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman and named it the “Army of the Mississippi.”  This army, made up of two Union army corps would be used to assault Fort Hindman.  Sherman had recently led the same troops in a failed assault on Chickasaw Bayou near Vicksburg.  Eager for redemption, his men were hungry for a victory.  Accompanying McClernand were three ironclads and four river gunboats under Admiral David D. Porter.  He would assault the fort by land while Porter would bombard it from the river.  A force of 30,000 men - with gunboats - against a Confederate garrison of 5,000 (healthy and sick) would suggest a blue tidal wave was about to roll over a hapless, disease ridden fort.

 

General John McClernand

On the morning of January 9, 1863, Fort Hindman’s garrison awoke to a forest of smokestacks on the Arkansas River.  The trenches were manned while McClernand’s men splashed ashore below the fort, packed their gear, and made their way through the swamps to Arkansas Post’s defensive line.  Some of them tried to capture feral hogs for supper but met with little success.  While Union troops continued landing on the following day, Texans began pulling down their own winter cabins for logs to help fortify their trenches.  Their adversaries bedded down within earshot of their bugles and construction work.  

The following morning, January 11, Porter began pounding the fort at point blank range.  The fort’s big naval guns were silenced while Union infantry confidently rose and charged forward.   At 80 to 100 yards from the Confederate line, they were met with a hail of minie balls, artillery shells and shotgun pellets.   One Ohioan wrote, “The enemy seemed determined to hold the fort.  The men in the ditches fought like so many tigers, and it was like running against a stone wall to attempt to drive them out.”  Union General A.J. Smith’s brigade lost 60 men during their initial assault.  “We were ordered to retreat, and back we rushed pell mell for the woods, all in confusion,” wrote Thomas Marshall of the 83^rd Ohio. “There we were rallied and cursed by General Smith, and again started forward.”  

Again they started forward and again they started forward; the Yankees’ sheer numbers were starting to have their effect.  After the fort’s Dahlgrens were disabled, naval fire began hitting the rebel trenches.  The effects were horrifying as men once whole were blown to pieces.  Robert Chalk of the Sixth Texas wrote: “One shell from the gunboats fell in our lines, just under my feet.  It killed and wounded 7 of our company.  Little Frank McLaughlin was lying just in front of me; he had a big leather belt on.  The shell cut him in two and his belt was left lying in the ditch.” It was only a matter of time before the Confederate line would be breached.  Most of the Texans preferred to continue the fight.  Members of the 24^th Texas Regiment, Garland’s brigade, had other plans – they initiated the fort’s surrender. 

Without authorization from General Churchill, white surrender flags began flying in front of the 24^th’s section of trenches.  Confusion reigned as Confederate officers were unsure if they should continue fighting or surrender.  Deshler’s men kept firing as jubilant Federals rushed out into the open thinking the Confederates had surrendered.  More white flags began to appear.  Union troops began to enter the Confederate works as the firing ceased.  Churchill had little choice but to surrender his entire command.  Mounted on his horse, he met with Sherman.  “Well Sherman,” he said. “I have made the very best fight in my power.”  Sherman replied, “And a very gallant fight you have made of it.”  Churchill rode his horse along the trenches to halt any stray shooting.  He argued heatedly with Garland over his unauthorized white flags.

The Confederate dead were buried in the trenches they fought in.  A.J. Withrow of the 25^th Iowa wrote, “The sight which met my eyes made my heart sick.  In one spot, I counted ten rebels who had been killed by one shell.  Some were cut in two, others had both legs shot off and blood, brains, and fragments of bodies lay all around, added to this dead horses, broken wagons, tents, clothing and indeed everything that makes up the paraphernalia of a camp lay about in grand confusion.”  Field hospitals were unintentionally riddled with shell fragments, killing the Confederate wounded inside.  For  Union troops, prebuilt wooden coffins, stacked ominously on their transports, were used to bury their dead.  Confederate casualties were 709 dead, wounded or missing while Union casualties were higher at 1,060.  Sherman ordered the fort burned and leveled.  Confederate prisoners suffered extended misery after being herded onto river steamers and shipped north to Chicago’s notorious Camp Douglas.  Exposed to freezing temperatures, many Texans had no coats (they had left them behind before the battle).  Many fell ill onboard as their diseases were transmitted to fellow prisoners and captors alike.

Arkansas Post would become a footnote to the overall Vicksburg Campaign commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant.  Angered by McClernand’s attack on Arkansas Post, Grant brought an abrupt end to McClernand’s political maneuverings and added his command to his own.  A quarter of the Confederate forces in Arkansas were suddenly lost, causing a panic in the streets of Little Rock, Arkansas.  Colonel Garland, who many blamed for the fort’s early surrender, would never command another regiment.  Until the end of the war, he was passed over for promotion.  Garland later died of tuberculosis; a disease he picked up while in prison camp.  Colonel Deshler was killed by an artillery shell at Chickamauga. 

                                                                                  

The Horse Marines

General John B. Magruder



Colonel Tom Green ordered his command to form a single line during a frosty December morning. “I want three hundred volunteers who are willing to die for Texas, and are ready to die now,” he thundered. The entire 5th Texas Cavalry Regiment volunteered by taking a step forward; the three hundred would have to be chosen by their officers. Their assignment, however, would not be carried out on the back of a horse, but on the deck of a converted steamboat.

Since October 1862, a Union flotilla, under Commander Charles Renshaw, occupied the port of Galveston while the 42nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment occupied its streets. Lacking sufficient numbers to fully occupy the city, the 42nd bivouacked at the end of Kuhn’s Wharf at night and patrolled the streets during the day. Though dangerously isolated, with little room to maneuver, the flotilla’s heavy guns defended the wharf from any infantry assaults. The commander of the 42nd Massachusetts, Colonel Isaac Burrell, was assured his men could be evacuated in a few minutes if it became necessary.

Confederate General John B. Magruder, Commander of the Texas District, wanted to retake Galveston. Referred to as “Prince John” by his fellow officers for his extravagant lifestyle, Magruder gained early acclaim for his deceptive tactics at the Battle of Yorktown. So effective were Magruder’s theatrics that Union General George McClellan was convinced he was heavily outnumbered - he actually had more than a two to one advantage. As a result, the Union advance was delayed, buying precious time for Confederate forces to establish a defensive front on the outskirts of Richmond, the Confederate capital. Magruder’s fame took a hit after a badly coordinated attack on Malvern Hill. The enormous losses led to a major shakeup of General Robert E. Lee’s command. Now a scapegoat, Magruder was transferred to far away Texas.

Texans considered Magruder a fighter and welcomed him with a downtown parade in Houston. Colonel John S. “Rip” Ford declared Magruder’s arrival was worth the addition of 50,000 troops. Bolstered by the local support, he immediately sought troops to recapture Galveston. Donning civilian clothes, Magruder crossed over to Galveston Island at night for a firsthand look at Union activity. Based on his own observations and those of the island’s residents, he formulated his plan of attack. The problem was where find the troops to carry it out.

Manpower was low to nonexistent on the Texas home front, but not entirely unavailable. Worn but rested after a disastrous campaign in New Mexico, the 5th and 7th Texas cavalry regiments were about to be dispatched to Louisiana. Instead, Magruder rerouted them to Houston. Now he needed a navy.

Transplanted New Englander, “Commodore” Leon Smith, appropriated a pair of side-wheel steamers – the Bayou City and Neptune. Each was to be equipped with one to two heavy cannons and 150 sharpshooters. Ragged in appearance as well as discipline, the Texans were anxious to redeem themselves with a victory on Texas soil or water for that matter. Colonel Green requested command of the sharpshooters while Smith would command the cottonclads. To protect the sharpshooters, cotton bales were piled like sandbags along the decks. For an onboard assault, two makeshift gangplanks were mounted to be dropped after steaming into a Union gunboat. 

On New Year’s Eve 1862, Magruder assembled his land forces at Virginia Point. A railroad bridge was planked over to allow his command to cross over to Galveston. Because of the mules’ refusal to cross the narrow bridge, the artillery and wagons had to be pulled over by hand. After the Texans took up positions near Kuhn’s Wharf, Magruder himself fired a canon to signal the attack. “Now boys, I have done my best as a private, I will go and attend to that of General,” he declared. The Texans attempted to assault the wharf with ladders carried out into the harbor and placed on the deck above – they were too short. Naval gunfire prevented a direct frontal assault across the wharf’s deck. Magruder’s infantry fell back to barricaded positions in town. The outcome now depended on Leon Smith’s cottonclads.

Magruder’s plan called for the cottonclads to attack after the assault on Kuhn’s Wharf got underway. It was hoped the assault would divert the Union flotilla away from Smith’s tiny fleet. A lookout on the Bayou City spotted the muzzle flashes and heard the intense gunfire – Smith ordered the cottonclads to attack. Their target was the revenue cutter U.S.S. Harriet Lane, a state of the art steamer used to pursue smugglers before the war. The Neptune stuck first by ramming into the Harriet Lane’s side. In the process, she suffered extensive damage to her bow followed by a canon shot from the Lane that caused her to sink. The fast thinking skipper headed the Neptune toward the nearby shallows. The onboard sharpshooters kept up an effective fire from the upper deck while the hull became submerged.

The Bayou City had better luck. The sharpshooters forced the Harriet Lane’s crew away from their guns and enabled the Bayou City to ram into the Lane. Green’s rebel-yelling marines poured out like ants onto the deck and overwhelmed the crew. The U.S.S. Owasco tried to help but couldn’t fire for fear of hitting their captured friends. The Lane’s colors were lowered and replaced with a white surrender flag. Smith boldly issued a demand for the surrender of the entire Union Flotilla.

Meanwhile, Commander Renshaw’s flagship, the U.S.S. Westfield, had ingloriously run aground during the battle and could not free herself. The captain of the U.S.S. Clifton, Captain Richard Law, rowed over on a small boat to the grounded Westfield. He told Renshaw about the Harriet Lane’s capture and Smith’s surrender demand. Law was afraid the captured guns on the Lane would be used on the flotilla. Not wishing the Westfield to be captured intact, Renshaw decided to blow up his flagship. After setting a fuse to the Westfield’s powder magazine, soaking the decks with flammable turpentine, and evacuating his crew to a nearby transport, Renshaw struck a match. The fuse proved defective when the Westfield blew up with Renshaw still onboard. Unsure of what to do next, Captain Law ordered the Union flotilla to steam back to New Orleans, leaving the 42nd Massachusetts and the Harriet Lane behind. Colonel Burrell surrendered his sword to General Richard Scurry, the commander of the infantry that attacked Kuhn’s Wharf. “Keep your sword colonel, a man who has done what you have deserves to wear it,” replied Scurry.

Despite all efforts to block or capture its harbor, Galveston remained in Confederate hands until the end of the war. Former Texas Governor and staunch Unionist, Sam Houston, penned a note of thanks to Magruder. “Thank you for driving from our soil a ruthless enemy. You have breathed new life into everything.” Further glory awaited Colonel Green in Louisiana, where his cavalry inflicted a string of humiliations on Union troops. His life ended tragically in 1864 at Blair’s Landing. While his troops sniped at Union naval vessels on the Red River, an ironclad’s lucky shot hit Green square on the head.

Defeat by Thirst

 

John R. Baylor

 

 

Major Lynde was in a quandary.  Rebel Texans were gathering in overwhelming numbers to attack his command at Ft. Fillmore, a lightly fortified post on the Rio Grande River in New Mexico Territory.  The only alternative was to evacuate at night and try to reach the nearest Union fort one hundred fifty miles away to the northeast.  Such a trek would require a full canteen of water, or so you would think.  Lynde's men thought they had something better.

After Texas seceded in February 1861, General Earl Van Dorn, Commander of the Confederate Army in Texas, ordered Lt. Colonel John R. Baylor to occupy Ft. Bliss in El Paso and defend Confederate held forts in West Texas.  These forts had been built by the U.S. Army to protect settlers and guard stagecoach routes against Indian attacks.  When the Civil War began, a number of these frontier forts were abandoned as U.S. troops surrendered or headed back north.   On July 3, 1861, Baylor's 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles reached Ft. Bliss.  Concerned about a Federal incursion from New Mexico Territory, Baylor decided to move against Ft. Fillmore, just up the Rio Grande from El Paso.  He set out with three hundred men.

John R. Baylor had a consuming hatred for Native Americans, especially Comanches, and felt a firm hand, as opposed to signed treaties, was the only way to deal with them.  As the son of an army surgeon, Baylor witnessed firsthand the tragic results of frontier life.  He later settled in Texas and became a prominent rancher, lawyer, and single term member of the Texas House of Representatives.  After a Comanche reservation was established on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, Baylor was appointed the Indian agent; a worse agent couldn't have been appointed.  He quarreled incessantly with his supervisor, Robert Simpson Neighbours, who wanted to protect the Comanches from an indifferent U.S. Cavalry and angry settlers bent on killing any Indian they could lay their hands on.  Baylor accused the reservation Comanches of providing aid and comfort to non-reservation Comanches still raiding  nearby settlements.  In 1857, he was dismissed, but that didn't stop him from stirring up settlers and forming vigilante groups to attack the reservation.  He even established an anti-Indian newspaper, "The White Man."  Things got so bad, Neighbors was forced to move the reservation to the Indian Territory.  He became a marked man for his efforts and was later assassinated.

The southern half of New Mexico Territory was an area plagued with constant Apache raids.  The Apaches were determined to drive out every white man in the Southwest.  Feeling unprotected and abandoned by the territorial capital in Santa Fe, the residents of Mesilla turned toward the Confederacy for support.  Many of the residents were Southern transplants, who controlled the politics and local economy.  It's not surprising they warmly welcomed Baylor's men.

The nearby Union garrison, at Fort Fillmore, would not be as accommodating.  The Union commander,  Major Isaac Lynde, decided to attack Baylor before he could advance on him.  Leading three hundred eighty men and two small mountain howitzers, the 58 year old Vermont native tried to force Baylor out of Mesilla.  Upon reaching the outskirts, he demanded Baylor's surrender.  Baylor replied, "If you wish the town and my forces, come and take them."   The Texans took up positions behind a stout adobe wall and Mesilla's rooftops.  Hampered by a dense cornfield and loose sand, Lynde's attack fell apart at the start.  Armed mostly with double- barreled shotguns, Baylor's men poured a deadly fire on Lynde's disjointed advance while Mesilla's residents cheered them on.  Lynde's aggressive spirit also fell apart with the loss of nine men.  He retreated back to the fort and made a half-hearted  attempt to fortify it with sandbags.  Hearing from a spy that Baylor was going to be reinforced with more men and artillery from El Paso, Lynde  decided to evacuate Ft. Fillmore.  The evacuation would require a daunting  trek to across the vast New Mexico desert and Organ Mountains to Ft. Stanton.  To fortify their resolve, Lynde's men helped themselves to the fort's supply of medicinal whiskey.  They filled their canteens with the stuff before heading off into the night.

Relief would come from the mountain springs, which were much further away than Lynde expected.  His men began dropping by the wayside from the effects of soaring desert heat, overwhelming thirst and whiskey filled canteens.  Seeing their dust trails from Mesilla, Baylor set off in pursuit. For him, it was a simple matter of scooping up staggering, thirst crazed stragglers without firing a shot.  Needless to say, Lynde was forced to surrender.  He was paroled then later discharged for abandoning his post.

Baylor set up a Confederate government with himself as governor in Mesilla.  He declared the southern half of New Mexico Territory to be the Confederate Territory of Arizona.  The new territory stretched from Mesilla to Tuscon in present day Arizona.  Almost immediately, the new Confederate governor was hit by a wave of Apache raids; ranches were burned, people were killed, and livestock was stolen on a daily basis.  Criticism of the new governor mounted steadily in the local newspapers;  something the thin-skinned Baylor couldn't abide.  After a critical piece appeared in the "Mesilla Times," he sought out the editor, Robert P. Kelly, and shot him in the face.  Severely wounded, Kelley died a few weeks later.

Baylor's frustrations with the Apaches grew by the minute.  Frustration led to extermination as the only viable solution.  Written orders were issued to his rangers to kill all adult Indians and sell their children to defray the costs.  Such orders horrified the Confederate Congress and President Jefferson Davis who sought peace with the Native Americans.  Baylor was removed from office and his commission was revoked.

The Confederate Territory of Arizona lasted just short of a year.  It was to be the only territory held by the Confederacy outside of state boundaries.   After the Confederate setback at Glorietta Pass, the Texans were forced to retreat back into their home state.  At the Battle of Galveston, where many of the New Mexico veterans fought, John R. Baylor fought as a private in the Confederate Army.