Tom’s Big Picture

I recently had time to see the new movie 300, about the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans held the pass against the entire Persian army- many believe it to be the glorious battle of Western history. With a bit of editing out of gratuitious sex and nudity (we now have editors than can snip DVD footage without recompression), the movie will be a classic worth showing to young men of the West for many years to come.

It shows our pagan ancestors in their full glory, hardened men of war, utterly merciless when facing a foe as equally unforgiving. Before we judge them too heavily, let’s remember the kind of wars fought at this time, those like Biblical wars of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Canaanites, divinely commanded and sanctioned. The sort of wars Stonewall Jackson said should be fought under the black flag of death, as he recommended the Confederacy do when the federal government exceeded its constitutional bounds. When one’s very civilization is at stake, as Jackson understood, there can be no mercy. As we see the federal government continue its reign of evil and death (50 million+ abortions and counting), Jackson does not sound so unreasonable.

To change gears a bit, what if I told you that Thermopylae was not the most glorious battle of all time? Some think it actually occurred 154 years ago, during the war Jackson fought.

In an 1882 speech, former Confederate president Jefferson Davis made an exuberant claim: “That battle at Sabine Pass was more remarkable than the battle at Thermopylae.”

In arresting prose, Edward T. Cotham, Jr., recounts the momentous hours of September 8, 1863, during which a handful of Texans—almost all of Irish descent—under the leadership of Houston saloonkeeper Richard W. Dowling, prevented a Union military force of more than 5,000 men, 22 transport vessels, and 4 gunboats from occupying Sabine Pass, the starting place for a large invasion that would soon have given the Union control of Texas.

The Davis Guards, a Confederate Army unit named for Jefferson Davis^qv and composed of forty-five enlisted men, one engineer, and one surgeon, all Irish and all in their twenties or younger, belonged to Company F, Texas Heavy Artillery, under Capt. Frederick H. Odlum. The recruits were hand-picked from the docks at Houston and Galveston and were known as the Fighting Irishmen. In August 1863 the unit, under command of Richard W. (Dick) Dowling,^qv was ordered to man the guns at Fort Sabine,^qv half a mile below Sabine City. They constructed an earthen-work fort large enough to hold their six guns. In the battle of Sabine Pass,^qv September 8, 1863, in the space of forty minutes, they fired 137 shots without stopping to swab the guns. Although they captured 350 prisoners and killed 50 Union soldiers, the Davis Guards sustained no losses. Gen. John B. Magruder^qv gave them a special citation and presented them with silver medals, said to be the only medals struck during the Confederacy.

It’s been called the “Alamo in Reverse”. Somebody should make a movie of this one too.