The Texas Thermopylae - Part One

Note: This entry is based on an excerpt from the 2016 centennial book: Deep Water: The Story of Beaumont and its Port. The town of Beaumont is about 90 miles east of Houston, Texas, and Sabine Pass is 30-ish miles to the south/southeast, as the crow flies.

Texas spent nearly a decade as proud republic before it became part of the United States of America. And yet, within fifteen years, the clouds of war gathered once again. The Lone Star State seceded from the Union along with the other Confederate States of America. It was during this “War of Northern Aggression” that Beaumont and its port were coveted targets. Popular history tends to highlight other towns of the South, like Atlanta, Charleston, and New Orleans. But a seemingly unstoppable Union army had its sights set on a lonely stretch of railroad laid westward from Beaumont—a meager spit of iron connecting to the Confederate armory in Houston. And, too, the port itself was another channel to transport men and supplies. Indeed, there were blockade-runners, sneaking in some supplies and contraband—though these were fewer and farther between than Union estimates.

This depicts the second Battle for Sabine Pass. The
lighthouse on the right still stands.

In September of 1862, the Union army captured Sabine Pass, a very narrow inlet to the shallow Sabine Lake. Soon after, Galveston had been captured and meant that the final two vital supply routes or ports of entry into the Confederacy had been captured or sealed off.

This would not stand.

Galveston was liberated from Union hands on New Year’s Day 1863 with a bold move orchestrated by Confederate General John Magruder. This loss was adding insult to injury for the Union because in October of 1862, Union forces abandoned the fort at Sabine Pass. This was due to faulty intelligence reports that Confederate forces were massing nearby for an assault. That never happened, nevertheless, these embarrassments were intolerable to Union strategists.

It took nine months before an organized Union fleet was assembled to assault Sabine Pass, but what a force it was. On the morning of September 8, 1863, the Union was packing twenty-two vessels, including four gunboats and eighteen transports carrying between four thousand and five thousand Union soldiers. The official objective was to seize Sabine Pass, and then proceed upriver to the port of Beaumont with the stated intent to plug a potential Confederate supply line. Real intentions, however, were to teach the Southerners a lesson. In other words, the North wanted vengeance.

Dick Dowling in 1866

Standing against this overwhelming force was Dick Dowling, a Texas treasure. He was an Irish immigrant who settled in Texas after encountering anti-Irish sentiments in New Orleans. Dowling prospered in Texas, having established several saloons. His civic efforts brought gaslight to Houston, along with streetcars, and he was a founding member of the city's first first fire company. Like many fellow Texans, he joined the Confederacy to protect his state and his city from northern aggressors. He commanded a militia of about forty-four men composed of mostly Irish immigrants. Their assignment—protect Sabine Pass at Fort Griffin.

Putting things in perspective, Dowling’s command was about a quarter of Travis’ defenders at the Alamo facing similar numbers from Santa Anna; and certainly the kind of odds that the Spartans could appreciate during their defense of Thermopylae against Persian forces two thousand years earlier. Let me restate this: it was 44 against well over 4,000.

Battle map of Sabine Pass

Not unlike ancient Thermopylae, Sabine Pass is just that, a pass. The waterway is a very narrow and shallow inlet from the Gulf of Mexico that squeezes traffic into a sliver. Just to compound things, there was an oyster reef right down the middle of the pass, splitting the channel into two even more narrow passages. Overlooking Sabine Pass is Fort Griffin, although the term “fort” is an overstatement. It was little more than earthworks—the walls were packed dirt of about thirty-five feet thick from front to back. It was defended by six smoothbore cannons behind the walls, and their mounts elevated the guns about five feet above normal ground level.

Dowling's task was simple, defend the pass, and do his level best to make the Union's 1,000 to 1 superiority count for nothing. Fortunately, Dowling was clever in a delightfully sneaky sort of way.

The militia placed stakes at particular points along both sides of the oyster reef. Remember, this reef ran down the center of the already narrow pass, splintering the passage. The stakes Dowling's men placed on the reef were range markers, and Dowling had his artillery teams use them during target practice. And practice they did all through July and August—and practice and practice.


Next: 44 men go to-to-toe with thousands of Union soldiers.

The Story Behind Your Grad's Gift

By William Falloure

     David Falloure

Before long, there will be a rush on wristwatches as gifts for those graduating high school or college. Maybe not so much now because we can get the time from a myriad of devices, but wristwatches and their predecessor, the pocket watch were revered gifts. These things were finely crafted pieces of mechanical engineering, and they became important elements to history.

On the face of it, pocket watches and wristwatches seem like they'd have little impact. After all, they just ell time. So what? Well, let's go back to the first pocket watches made in the 1500s. They were transitional—evolving from things sitting on a desk or hanging on a wall, to something wearable. They weren’t particularly accurate, amounting to little more than jewelry pieces. Refinement needed a reason to kick-start the drive. And it got one.

Navigating the oceans up to the 18th century had a serious limitation—longitude. To understand that, however, we need to step back a few millennia. The whole idea of latitude and longitude—the coordinate system we use for navigation today—was cooked up in the 3rd century BC by an ancient Greek mathematician. Determining latitude is pretty easy. Ancients learned to use certain stars or constellations to identify their latitudinal position. Later sailors used the angle of the sun at noon, which led to the sextant. Still, no one had a handle on longitude.

Longitude is the east/west position on the Earth, as compared with latitude, which is the north/south position between the poles. Unlike latitude that uses the sun to determine position, longitude has no direct or consistent celestial referent. At least, there’s nothing user-friendly.

Going back to ancient times, Hipparchus was a 2nd century mathematician actually using the latitudinal system to specify places on the earth. He also derived a way to determine longitude by comparing local time of a place needing to be pinpointed with another place recognized as “absolute time.” The place with absolute time was the control, making time the key. But why?

Even if someone had a mobile, easy-to-use and accurate method for keeping time, one small ingredient was missing. In fact, it took a millennium to reveal it. Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Al-Bīrūnī was an 11th century Islamic scholar. He was, among other things, an excellent mathematician and astronomer. He understood that the earth rotated on an axis, and that the speed of that rotation directly connects to our measurement of time. Once he got that figured out, it was, well, a matter of time to solve the problem.

Accurate time between the two points remained elusive until the arrival of John Harrison—keymaster. Yes, between ancient times and 1773 when Harrison perfected his marine clock, everyone and their mother had an idea to determine longitude—from Galileo to Halley (of comet fame), and on and on. After all, governments, in effect, put a bounty on time by offering prizes for methods reliably demonstrating a longitudinal method that was user-friendly. Nothing worked particularly well, until Harrison crafted an amazing innovation—the watch.

Harrison's H4

Watches are mechanical timepieces—duh. But they are a solution different from other timekeepers, such as sundials, hourglasses, etc. Clocks were fine but not at all steady resting anywhere on a ship because they relied on pendulums or balances easily thrown off by movements of wind and sea. And there is the difference. Watches are by concept, mobile because they utilize a balance spring, which is the crux of making a totally self-contained, sustainable timepiece. The funny thing is that it took a Yorkshire, England carpenter to figure out how to build a marine chronometer—and it took him four prototype developments to do it. His efforts began around 1762, and he completed them by 1773 when he won the Longitude Prize.

It took quite a while longer for marine chronometers to become the standard, but they did. And the small, portable, and reliable chronometer became a standard for navigation. It let ship captains find their position in longitude. With knowing longitude and latitude, captains finally knew their exact position. Without the pocket watch, that was impossible.

Patek-Philippe

Pocket watch to wristwatch

Patek-Philippe & Co created the first wristwatch in 1868, but it was not practical for men, nor did it get much traction in the marketplace. It was more bracelet than timepiece—and, as such, not masculine. Besides, the pocket watch was just fine. They were now accurate, attractive but not feminine, and much of men’s clothing accommodated placed to hold one’s timepiece. Nothing was really driving a need to make a man’s wristwatch. In 1903, however, all that changed.

The Wright Brothers are credited with the first powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft. From that moment, aviation exploded. In the early years of powered flight, watches were necessary not only for pilot navigation, but also for calculating flight time with available fuel remaining in the tank. Pocket watches, however, had a drawback. They were hard to hold in one hand while controlling the aircraft with the yoke in the other, and adjusting the throttle simultaneously. Additionally, try holding a map or, at night, holding a lantern to see the watch and the map at the same time, all while flying at a time before autopilot. Impossible.

Wright Flyer

The breakthrough came during those early years because of the friendship between one pioneer and another—Alberto Santos-Dumont and Louis Cartier.

Louis Cartier

Santos-Dumont was a Brazilian aristocrat. He was also an aviation innovator who led the way for commercializing aircraft, designing several variations and building them to order. He declined to patent his innovations in order to help the budding industry flourish. Santos-Dumont was an accomplished pilot, too. Moreover, it was his friendship with Louis Cartier that inspired the wristwatch innovation. In 1904, Cartier designed the first real wristwatch for his pilot friend. He called the Santos and it delivered as designed. Stylish, accurate, as well as innovative like its namesake.

Santos 1911

Suddenly, the wristwatch became popular and Cartier’s watches for men went on retail sale in 1911. After all, it no longer appeared as a bracelet. The leather strap looked masculine and durable. The watch face was bold, yet practical. What’s more, pilots wore them—so, you know, there’s brand affiliation with cool and daring guys. So yeah, the wristwatch took off along with aviation.

Over the years, watchmakers have taken great pride in constructing the personal timepiece, both in terms of the finesse of timekeeping as well as aesthetics. The drive came from the much-needed ability to navigate the globe, and then to sustain such accuracy with the ability to "hands free" see that time.

This is only one facet of the evolution of time-keeping, and how it is so crucial. Time permitting, more stories may follow.


William Falloure graduated from the Virginia Military Institute with a bachelor's degree in HIstory. He currently serves in the United States Army and related to the editor of this blog. He produced the award-winning student documentaries, The Hellenic Revolution and Cuban Missile Crisis. Falloure is an Eagle Scout with Bronze, Gold, and Silver Palms. His interests are history, military strategy, and lacrosse.

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Includes entries by David H. Falloure