As a follow-up to our discussion last Wednesday about how the battle of Sabine Pass would have looked from the perspective of slaves in Texas, you may find it interesting to glance at this book: Three Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863 (1864), by Arthur John Fremantle.
Fremantle was an Englishman who wanted to see firsthand the condition of the Confederacy, for which he felt some sympathy and admiration. He spent much of his time in Texas, where he met Sam Houston and some of the major characters in the Cotham book, like General Magruder. Cotham cites Fremantle as a source because of his useful descriptions of Sulakowski’s fortifications around Galveston, but it’s also interesting to notice that Fremantle has a lot to say about slavery in the area and reports frequently about the movements of slaves and slaveholders in East Texas on the eve of the battle of Sabine Pass.
The book is available online, so if you have a moment, check out page 66, where Fremantle describes reaching Houston, and read to around page 91. What is happening to slavery in the area in these months just before Banks launches his attempt to land Union troops at Sabine Pass? Can you infer anything about why Confederate Texans were especially concerned about that landing in the fall of 1863?