What is Edward Cotham suggesting when he praises the battle of Sabine Pass as the Confederacy’s Thermopylae? I wrestled with this question throughout my reading of the book, formulating my own interpretation of the claim along the way, and at times vehemently disagreeing with Cotham’s comparison between two very different historical battles. It was not until the final page, however, when I truly grasped the idea that Cotham’s subtitle said more about the Battle’s ideological and historical impact than its military and strategic one. Indeed, Sabine’s location on the outskirts of the primary theaters of the Civil War and the fact that the Confederacy ultimately lost the War seek to diminish the historical significance of the battle from a strategic standpoint. On the contrary, Cotham notes about the battle of Sabine Pass:
It reminds us that occasionally in real life Davids do defeat Goliaths…It is a story that still has the capacity to both amaze and inspire us (202).
This perspective on the battle exemplifies the role of power in historical production as discussed by Trouillot. When Dick Dowling’s legacy is analyzed in the scope of history, we see a man who achieved fame in the immediate wake of Sabine Pass, and remains immortalized via statues and memorials throughout the South. The groups behind the production of such memorials include Irish and Confederate heritage groups, as well as the Daughters of the Confederacy, including Dick’s daughter, Annie. These social groups are understandably interested in keeping Dowling, a man whose legacy embodies the greater Confederate story, present in modern memory. The same can be said about Jefferson Davis, who not only perpetuated the Davis Guards’ story but also amplified it in the post-war years. His dedication to telling the story during the War could easily be dismissed as a desperate Confederate search for a public hero, but his commitment to Sabine after the War confirms Trouillot’s notion that the past is never isolated from the present. Certainly the battle certifies that the history of events are produced in accordance with modern interests, such as the Confederate reluctance to abandon their stance even 150 years after the War’s conclusion. Because of this reluctance, a variety of historical narrators and accounts of Sabine Pass have emerged so that it could be said in the early 20th-century:
“There is not a school boy in Texas who does not know [about Dowling’s battle at Sabine Pass]. And there is not a school boy in all New England who ever heard of Dick Dowling or Sabine Pass” (192).
Naturally Farragut, Crocker and the rest of the Union wanted to silence the battle of Sabine Pass because of their lack of success, while the Confederates sought to preserve its memory because of their victory. Beyond this, the Northern silence of Sabine could have resulted from the idea that the battle really was militarily insignificant. After all, Cotham admits that the Union attack on Sabine was primarily motivated by political and commercial concerns, while most Union generals lobbied for an invasion of Mobile, Alabama. Regardless, such speculation only confirms that there are many reasons why historical events get silenced. Even among the Confederate victors it would appear that silences ensue. Most Confederate sources and memorials, including the statue of Dowling by Hermann Park, silence the fact that a great many of the thousands of Union soldiers present at Sabine were actually never involved in the fighting. Recognition of such a fact would undoubtedly undermine the Confederate victory and the battle’s legacy. Perhaps Jefferson Davis, although, could never have believed such a fact in his time, while any attack on Dowling’s legacy would simply be unthinkable.
After reading Sabine Pass I am interested to hear from everyone else about their interpretation of the battle. I ultimately agree that the battle of Sabine Pass is the Confederacy’s Thermopylae not because it gave the South a strategic upper hand in the Civil War, but because Sabine exists in public memory today as a symbol of courage and a living preservation of the Confederate cause. In light of its immediate and historical impact, therefore, do you agree that the Sabine Pass was (and still is) the Confederacy’s Thermopylae? Or is it perhaps a forty-five minute skirmish that speaks more to Union ineptitude than Confederate heroics?
Like Cotham suggests: after all the statues and memorials, only we can formulate our own historical interpretations.