Richard William "Dick" Dowling

Heroes sometimes come from unlikely places. Such was the case on September 8, 1963 when, during the height of the Civil War, Union forces attacked Confederate Texans at Sabine Pass. This pivotal battle made a Houston saloon keeper, Dick Dowling, a Texas legend.

Richard William Dowling was an immigrant to Texas, born in Ireland in 1838 and moving to Houston as a teenaged orphan. Red-haired and gregarious, Dowling soon endeared himself to several Houston businessmen. At age nineteen he opened the first of his successful saloons, the Shades, and married Elizabeth Ann Odlum, daughter of a local entrepreneur. During the next three years Dowling added other Houston entertainment establishments, as well as a Galveston liquor importing company, to his burgeoning business empire.

When Texas seceded and the Civil War broke out, Dowling joined the majority of Texans in supporting the Confederacy. In 1861 he served as a first lieutenant in units that saw action along the Texas-Mexico border and in January 1863 took part in the Confederate re-capture of Galveston. Soon thereafter, Dowling earned a reputation as an artillery officer with uncommon skill in aiming the big eight-inch guns used along the Texas coast. Late in the spring of 1863 Dowling was posted to Fort Griffin at Sabine Pass as commander of Company F of the First Texas Heavy Artillery. Sabine Pass was a strategic location that controlled access to the Sabine River and thus to East Texas and Louisiana.

By late in the summer of 1863, while Dowling prepared to defend Sabine Pass from an expected Union assault, the Confederacy was in trouble. Federal victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July led to a loss of confidence among southern troops and, more importantly, Union control of the Mississippi River. Texas's Gulf Coast thus became one of the most critical areas for the Confederates to defend; without it, vital supply routes would disappear.

When Union vessels appeared on September 8, Dowling and his men were prepared. They had been practicing for weeks, targeting their cannons on markers placed in the river channels. As the first Federal gunboats, the U.S.S. Sachem and the U.S.S. Arizona, attempted to run up the river and flank the Confederate positions, Dowling and his men met them with withering cannon fire. The Sachem's boiler was hit, and her captain quickly raised a white flag. The Arizona, also disabled, escaped into the Gulf of Mexico. Another gunboat, the U.S.S. Clifton, was likewise chased back into open water by Dowling's precision cannon fire. The entire battle lasted only forty-five minutes, and the Union forces were routed.

The Battle of Sabine Pass was Dick Dowling's finest hour. He left the Confederate Army as a major in 1865 and returned to his Houston businesses. His bright future as a businessman and civic leader was cut tragically short by yellow fever, however, and he died on September 23, 1867.

Richard William "Dick" Dowling was interred at Houston's St. Vincent's Cemetery at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church on the southeast side of town. To get there, take Hwy. 59 to Runnels St. and exit east to Navigation Boulevard.

For more information about Dick Dowling, see the New Handbook of Texas. To learn more about East Texas history, contact the East Texas Historical Association at Stephen F. Austin State University or visit the ETHA web site at http://leonardo.sfasu.edu/etha/.