Sabine Pass, Clifton and Shirley Caldwell Texas Heritage Series

This “beautifully written . . . and meticulously researched” Civil War history vividly recounts one of the most decisive battles fought in Texas (Civil War News).

Jefferson Davis once said the Battle of Sabine Pass was “more remarkable than the battle at Thermopylae.” 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, Sabine Pass at last separates the legends from the evidence.

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 5,000 men, twenty-two transport vessels, and four gunboats from occupying Sabine Pass, the starting place for a large invasion that would soon have given the Union control of Texas.

Sabine Pass sheds new light on previously overlooked details, such as the design and construction of the fort 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.