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The Second Battle of Sabine Pass took place on September 8, 1863, the result of a failed Union Army attempt to invade the Confederate state of Texas during the American Civil War. It has often been credited as the most one-sided Confederate victory during the War. ==Background== France was openly sympathetic to the Confederate States of America early in the Civil War, but never matched its sympathy with diplomatic or military action. After Mexican forces were defeated by French forces in summer 1863, Mexican president Benito Juárez escaped the capital, and the French installed Austrian Maximilian as "Emperor". With a de facto French government bordering Texas on the south across the Rio Grande, the Confederates hoped to establish a formal route between Texas and Mexico by way of which the Confederacy could obtain much-needed supplies. United States President Abraham Lincoln was well aware of Confederate intentions and sent an expedition to establish a military presence in Texas and to discourage Maximilian from opening trade with the Confederacy. The military Federal force was commanded by Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, a political general with little discernible command ability. Banks's original intent was to launch a combined Army-Navy campaign in northwest Louisiana. The Union plan was to send Union Navy warships from the Mississippi up the tributary Red River, which was navigable upstream as far as where the boundaries of the Confederate states of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas came together. The Union declared its Capture of New Orleans on May 1, 1863, and after the July 3, 1863 surrender of Confederate Vicksburg, the Union military had better control of both the east and west banks and of the mouth of the Mississippi. Unusually low water in the Red River at this time, however, prevented even relatively low-draft Union gunboats from operating effectively, and the anticipated overland Union invasion of Texas was further delayed. Consequently, General Banks ordered his subordinate, Major General William B. Franklin, who would coordinate with the U.S. Navy, to enter the Sabine River from the Gulf of Mexico and defeat the small Confederate detachment at "Fort Sabine" on the river's west bank (Texas side) at Sabine Pass. about 2 miles (3.2 km) upstream of the river mouth. The key U.S. Navy target in the First Battle of Sabine Pass was the original earthworks thrown up on the Texas (west) shore of the Sabine River about three miles (4.8 km) south of Sabine City, a tiny town with some wharfs on the east side of its main street. After the Navy gunboats subdued the fort, the first wave of U.S. Army infantrymen riding the deck of one of the gunboats would debark at the fort. They were to take Sabine City, secure the area for the main landing force, and prepare to march on Beaumont. This action would deny the Pass and the natural shallow-water harbor Sabine Lake, upstream from the Gulf about 6 miles (about 9.6 km), to blockade runners. Beaumont, on higher ground about 18 miles (33 km) northwest of Sabine City, was the key to threatening Houston. If Union forces were to capture Beaumont, through which passed the railway line from Houston to New Orleans, then the last remaining railroad connection between Texas and the eastern Confederacy would be under Union control. Fort Sabine had been renamed "Fort Griffin" in honor of an earlier commander, Confederate Lt. Colonel W. H. Griffin, although this was not shown on Union maps since the First Battle of Sabine Pass in late September 1862.〔Battle_of_Mouth_of_Sabine_River,_September_8th,_1863_-_NARA_-_305664.tif〕 (This Fort Griffin is not the 1867 post-Civil War U.S. Army cavalry frontier post Fort Griffin west of Fort Worth, Texas.) The Confederate detachment residing at the fort was the Jeff Davis Guards (named for Confederate president Jefferson Davis), a company of mostly Irish-American men from the Houston and Galveston area, recently had been merged into the First Texas Heavy Artillery. They were stationed at the hastily built earthworks a mile (1.6 km) upstream (north) on the southwest bank of the Pass. When the battle began with the Union gunboats' bombardment on September 8, 1863, at the fort were forty-six men; all but two or three were members of the Davis Guards.〔''Sabine Pass Battleground State Historic Park, Archeological Report #8, Antiquities Permit #21'' by T. Holtzapple and Wayne Roberson. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Historic Sites and Restoration Branch, Austin, Texas, Sept. 1976〕 Under the immediate command of Lieutenant Richard W. Dowling, the Davis Guards had mounted their unit's six old smoothbore cannon on the elevated platform of the small earthen fort. Although unimpressive to Union observers and scouts, the fort's gun positions were high enough to afford a clear view to the horizon for many miles: the flat marshlands stretched northeastward into Louisiana, westward toward Houston, southwestward toward Galveston, northward toward Port Arthur and Beaumont, and southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico. The nearest observation point affording a view of Fort Griffin, other than from the mast "top" of a naval vessel seaward of the Pass, was a lighthouse on the Louisiana (opposite) side of Sabine Pass at the mouth of the Sabine River. Considering the dominant size of the Union expeditionary force, taking control of Sabine Pass and environs was not expected to be a great challenge to the U.S. forces. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Second Battle of Sabine Pass」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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