Richard Dowling

After the battle, Houston residents raised money for medals cut from smoothed silver Mexican pesos, engraved with the battle's name, the date and the letters D G, and hung from green ribbons. A year later the Confederacy presented official silver medals at a public ceremony. The captured gunboats paid off too: thirteen heavy guns came off the Clifton and Sachem, and at least two Parrott rifles went to Leon Smith's Texas Marine Department. About eighty Beaumont troops reached the fort by the steamer Roebuck some three hours after the fighting began.

What the plaque says

Richard Dowling In memory of Lt. Richard W. Dowling and his men. Texas remembers the faithfulness and valor of her sons and commends their heroic example to future generations. The men who fought Second Lt. N. H. Smith - Dr. Geo. H. Bailey - Patrick Abbott - Michael Carr - Abner R. Carter - Pat Clair - James Corcoran - Thos. Daugherty - Hugh Deagan - Michael Delaney - Dan. Donovan - Jno. Drummond - Michael Eagan - Pat Fitzgerald - James Fleming - John Flood - William Gleason - Tom Hagerty - William Hardy - John Hassett - John Hennessey - James Higgins - Tim Huggins With Lt. Dowling were Tim Hurley - William L. Jett - Pat Malone - Alex McCabe - Pat McDonnell - Tim McDonough - John McGrath - John McKeever - Michl. McKernan - Dan McMurray - Jno. McNealis - Michl. Monoghan - Peter O' Hara - Lawrence Plunkett - Maurice Powers - Edw. Pritchard - Charles Rheins - Michl. Sullivan - Pat Sullivan - Thomas Sullivan - Mathew Walsh - John T. Westley - John W. White - Joseph Wilson Thus it will be seen that we captured with forty-seven men two gunboats mounting thirteen guns of the heaviest caliber and about three hundred and fifty prisoners. All my men behaved like heroes, not a man flinched from his post. Our motto was victory or death. Official report of Lt. Richard W. Dowling. At this site on Sept. 8th, 1863 Dick Dowling and forty-seven men comprising Company F, Texas Heavy Artillery Jefferson Davis Guards C.S.A., from a mud fort repulsed an attack made by four warships and twelve hundred men of the Federal Army thus saving Texas from invasion by the enemy. There is no parallel in ancient or modern warfare to the victory of Dowling and his men at Sabine Pass considering the great odds against which they had to contend. Jefferson Davis

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sabine Pass Battleground State Historic Site — 0.3 mi
  A waterfront park at the mouth of the Sabine where the earthwork of Fort Griffin stood, with a Dowling statue, a Union memorial, wartime magazines and a walkway for fishing.
• Sea Rim State Park — 9.4 mi
  Texas's far southeast corner: nearly two miles of Gulf shoreline backed by 4,000 acres of marsh, reached by boardwalk or paddle trail, rebuilt after Rita and Ike.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 10 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 24 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.

More markers nearby

• Site of Fort Griffin — steps away
• Capture of the USS Morning Light and USS Velocity — steps away
• World War II Coastal Defenses at Sabine Pass — steps away
• Fort Manhassett — steps away