This week I went deep into the bowels of Fondren library to the Kelley Government & Microform section to go in search of articles pertaining to Dick Dowling’s memorial or the Battle of Sabine Pass. I will confess though, that either Dr. McDaniel or Mercy Harper, had to do the real grunt work to find where these articles lived in the probable millions of pages stored in microfilm. I found two articles of note.
The first we have seen before in the Houston Public Library Digital Archive. It is from September 14 1939 and documents briefly the relocation of the Dowling statue from its original site at Market Square (Preston & Travis streets today) to Sam Houston Park. The author of the article, while adhering to modern journalist tendencies to keep objective, shows a bit of disappointment at the move when he contrasts that “a fleet of yankee gunboats couldn’t dislodge” Lt. Dowling whereas it took only a few workers to take him off his pedestal. Furthermore, it notes that Dowling’s statue was being moved to make room for the construction of bus sheds because old City Hall was being converted into a bus station after the move of the city government to a new building. Of interest to our study of the memory of the Civil War, the article states that the monument was erected in 1905 by the “Dock (sic) Dowling Camp of United Confederate veterans” with the “aid of other organizations”. I attribute the spelling error to poor copy-editing, not a deliberate slight, however it is clear that in 1939 the UCV takes credit for the memorial. Also of interest is the relative obscurity of the article. It was found on the last page of the local section, almost added as a post-script next to an article on garbage service satisfaction. The newspaper as a whole was primarily focused on the escalation of WWII in Europe.
The second article, in my opinion is a lot more interesting for the study of Dick Dowling and the memory of Sabine Pass. It comes from a June 12, 1893 edition of The Galveston Daily News. Although it starts with a few pronouns without antecedents that confuse where the author gets his information (eventually it is revealed to be a veteran of the battle), it embarks on a history of the events at Sabine Pass with particular attention paid to the actions of Dowling and Dr. G.H. Bailey, a volunteer that joined Dowling during the fight. There are a few very important details relevant to the public history of the Battle of Sabine Pass. First, the article mentions that the Davis Guards (and the volunteers) were given silver medals by the people of Houston in the battle’s aftermath. Interestingly this commemoration was spearheaded by a Catholic priest– father Luerat, which leads me to believe that the Irish aspect of commemoration existed the length of post-Civil War history. Secondly, the article also addresses the controversy of how many men fought in the battle of Sabine Pass. It states 44 (42 Davis Guards and 2 Volunteers) were present. Thirdly, the author raises the point of the plight of veterans. While this was written before Dowling’s statue was erected, he despises the fact that money is spent creating monuments in favor of providing social services to veterans who must rely on the “bread of charity”. The author also concludes with an interesting observation: that “old confederates cheer loudly when the bands strike ‘Hail Columbia’…and the compliment is returned when ‘Dixie’ floats upon the air.
The article, while helping to satisfy the eternal questions of historians: “what actually happened” and “who was involved”, has raised a few questions particularly with regards to commemoration. Who was Father Luerat, and was he actually associated with an Irish church or was Catholicism irrelevant? This might mean that Irish commemoration of Sabine Pass started much earlier than we thought. Also, is the social commentary of the article – that monument funds should be shunted to help veterans – purely the views of the author? Or did public opinion begin to shift away from monuments in the 1890s, and thus Dick Dowling’s monument needed Irish support to overcome this block in public opinion?