Tuesday Sept. 8 1863 Gen. Nathaniel Banks had important work to do: retake the Texas cities of Beaumont and Houston. To accomplish this, he assembled four ships, gunboats and troop transports, and set off. To get to his destination required him to get by Sabine Pass, on the Texas-Louisiana border. There was only a feeble force of forty Confederates, with some earthworks and guns, to stop him. This force, commanded by Lt. Dick Dowling, along with a couple of “cottonclad” gunboats under Gen. Jhn Bankhead Magruder, did exactly that. They sank the two lead gunboats and forced their crews to surrender, and drove off the rest of the invasion force with heavy losses. Banks was humiliated and fit to be tied. His superiors were not exactly thrilled with his performance either.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 07:29:38 +0000
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