Predicting Battle Outcomes

For many years, I have heard of how fewer than 50 Confederate soldiers commanded by Lieutenant Dick Dowling held off a force of several thousand Union sailors and soldiers who were attempting to land near Sabine Pass, Texas, in September 1863. Amazingly the small number of soldiers stationed in Fort Griffin was more than ample to hold off the Union force; Dowling even had the luxury of sending two men off to return some dinner dishes to a local hotel!

How was victory achieved? “…battles are often won or lost before they actually take place. Bravery consists not only of knowing when and how to take a stand, but how to be prepared for conflicts before they occur. Hard work and careful preparation are the essential keys to success in war as in all other aspects of our lives” according to Edward T. Cotham, Jr., in Sabine Pass: The Confederacy’s Thermopylae (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004, p. 196). This comment takes into account decision making far from the battlefield (often involving people who are not directly involved in the battle), defensive preparations, the choice of weapons to employ during the battle, supply issues, and many other factors. The battle of Sabine Pass is a fascinating case study of the factors that play a role in who wins and who loses a battle. Cotham ably details how expert Confederate engineering, defensive preparations by the Confederates, overaggressiveness by the Federal navy, the use of poorly armed Federal gunboats, and the failure to land troops in conjunction with the naval attack led to defeat.

So Many Books and So Little Time

Thanks to Christmas gifts from kind relatives, I now have a stack of new books to read for 2010. Unfortunately, I am not a particularly fast reader so I often despair of being able to read all of the books that I really want to read. Occasionally, I enjoy highlighting books that I have found personally rewarding. Among these is The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine: The Illustrated Note-Book of Henry O. Gusley edited and annotated by Edward T. Cotham, Jr.; I found this to be an excellent and relatively quick read. Published by the University of Texas Press in 2006, The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine is an attractive and well-designed book. A native Pennsylvanian, Henry O. Gusley, enlisted in the U. S. Marines in 1861 at age 24. Gusley served along the Gulf Coast and was involved in blockading duties and a number of skirmishes from the Texas coast to the Florida coast. Most notably, he served in the Louisiana Teche campaigns and the battles of Galveston and Sabine Pass. Confederates captured him after the battle of Sabine Pass, and imprisoned him at Camp Groce in Texas. His captured journal made its way into the hands of the editor of the Galveston Tri-Weekly News who published Gusley’s journal serially during the war; this became a popular feature of the newspaper and even led to a brief correspondence between the newspaper editor and the imprisoned Gusley. In the book, editor Edward T. Cotham, Jr. pairs Gusley’s journal with the wartime drawings of Dr. Daniel D. T. Nestell who also served in the Gulf and observed many of the same things that Gusley did. The journal and the drawings fit amazingly well together. Of course the heart of the book is Gusley’s journal. Gusley struck me as decent, thoughtful, and observant, and I suspect that many of the readers of the Galveston Tri-Weekly reached the same conclusion. Mr. Cotham is to be commended for pairing Gusley’s journal and Nestell’s drawings and for his excellent editing. The book offers many interesting insights into shipboard service in the trans-Mississippi.