Lieutenant Lea and Commodore Wainwright were buried with military honors from General Magruder’s headquarters, Major Lea reading the service for the burial of the dead.
The body of young Sherman was carried to his beloved mother, who in her home on the bay had listened with a beating heart to the cannonading of the battle in which her son’s brave young life had ended.
3. HOME AGAIN.
A small earthwork called Fort Griffin had been built by the Confederates on the Texas side of Sabine Pass at the mouth of the Sabine River. It was protected by five light guns and garrisoned by the Davis Guards, a company from Houston commanded by Captain Odlum. The first lieutenant of the company was Dick Dowling, an Irishman but twenty years of age.
Fort Griffin, though small, was a place of much importance. Sabine Pass was a sort of outlet for the pent-up Confederacy. Blockade-runners, in spite of the Federal ships stationed in the Gulf, were always slipping out of the Sabine River, loaded with cotton for Cuba or Europe, and stealing in with arms and supplies from Mexico.
Richard Dowling.
Soon after the battle of Galveston, Major Oscar Watkins, Confederate States navy, was sent by General Magruder with two cotton-clad steamboats, the Josiah Bell and the Uncle Ben, to annoy the blockading fleet at Sabine Pass. After a skirmish and an exciting chase, he succeeded in capturing two United States ships, the Velocity and the Morning Light (January 21, 1863).
The United States then determined to take Fort Griffin and land at Sabine Pass a force large enough to overawe that part of the country. Twenty-two transports carried the land troops, about fifteen thousand in number, to the Pass. Four gunboats, the Sachem, the Clifton, the Arizona, and the Granite City, accompanied them, to bombard the fort and cover the landing of the soldiers. The expedition was under the command of General Franklin.
When this formidable fleet appeared at Sabine Pass, Captain Odlum was absent and Lieutenant Dowling was in command of Fort Griffin. His whole force consisted of forty-two men. He ordered the “Davys,” as they were called, to stay in the bombproofs until he himself should fire the first gun. Then, hidden by the earthwork, he watched the approach of the gunboats.