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Regtl. Quartermaster Chickamauga 2018 Vicksburg 2019
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2015
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- Texas
Finished this one last night. Thanks to @AndyHall for the book recommendation back in July after I posted about my visit to Sabine Pass Battleground State Park.
The book is 288 pages. 215 pages of text,a coupla very readable,enjoyable appendices and accompanying footnotes. The rest is footnotes,bibliography and index.
Very enjoyable and easy read. It grabbed my attention from the start with a description and excerpts of a speech Jefferson Davis gave in New Orleans in 1882. The title of the book comes from the speech. There are several chapters devoted to the history of Sabine Pass beginning in about 1830,how it came to be chosen as a point of attack and who chose it. That includes a history of the actions by Confederate and Union forces along the Texas and Louisiana coasts prior to the battle,the building of the forts there,Lt. Richard Dowling and the Davis Guards who manned Fort Griffin during the battle and the Union commanders and forces involved in the battle. There were actually 2 forts built there and 2 battles fought there and both are described in the book. A good part of the book was about 2 engineers who were immigrants and actually designed and built Fort Griffin and fortifications in Galveston. I'll post their names when I get home tonight. @Pat Young may know about them or be interested in them. There was even some good stuff about the 2 battles of Galveston in the book.
The chapters about the 2nd Battle Of Sabine Pass(September 8,1863) were great reading. I learned a lot that you just can't get from visiting the park. The only criticism I have of the book is there wasn't much about the treatment of the wounded or handling of the prisoners after the battle. The tiny garrison at the Fort and population of the small town of Sabine City were not prepared for the number and kind of Union casualties. Many of the wounded were badly burned by scalding water and steam when the boilers on the Clifton and Sachem were hit by artillery shells.
The final coupla chapters are about what happened to the Fort,Sabine Pass and the combatants on both sides in the rest of the war and after the war.
Good book.
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