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1863. Battle of the Sabine Pass Medal. Silver. Named to Jack White
From Stack's January 2005 Auction, Session 1 on Jan 18, 2005
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 1863. Battle of the Sabine Pass Medal. Silver. Named to Jack White. 37.2 mm. 280.0 gns. Choice Extremely Fine. Pale silver and gold in color. Original, unbroken suspension bar. Length of gray/red/blue ribbon accompanying the medal not contemporary (the medal was not issued with a ribbon; Dowling chose a green ribbon when he sat for his portrait). Bertram MBR 863W7. Extensively described with supporting documentation in Belden (War Medals of the Confederacy, ANS, 1915, pp. 3-8). Belden lists the roster of the Davis Guards on which will be found Jack W. White's name.
On one side is engraved D.G (for Davis Guards) above a small Maltese cross. More faintly engraved is a large lone star, for Texas. The rim is decoratively engraved with bands. The other side of the medal is engraved Jack White Sabine Pass Sept.8th 1863. The rim on this side is also decoratively engraved with the same motif seen on the other. The edge is plain. The finest seen by the writer, who has now catalogued three of these. Extremely rare. Each member of the Guards (47) was awarded a medal, two were given to officers who volunteered to go into the works with the Guards, and one was presented to Jefferson Davis, for a total of 50 made. The cataloguer knows of only seven of these that survive, today, including four permanently impounded in public institutional collections. There have been only two prior publc auction sales of one of these medals: Stack's sales of June, 1994 (Thomas Hagerty's medal) and September, 1995 (a newly dug piece, unnamed). The Davis Guard medal is the only Confederate wartime issued battle medal.
The medal's history and the story of the battle it remembers were described in detail in the pages of Coin World on March 31, 1994. The cataloguer is happy to acknowledge the paper's permission to adapt the story for this description.
Chickamauga, First and Second Manassas, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg...the roll call of great Civil War battles includes the names of some of the most legendary and bloody fights our nation has ever known. Through four long years of terrible war men on both sides fought and died protecting what they believed in. Casualties on both sides came to one million killed or wounded, more than in any other war in our nation's history. Acts of bravery and heroism under fire were honored on the Union side by the Congressional Medal of Honor, authorized for non-commissioned Navy ranks in 1861, for all Army ranks in 1863. The Union medal was cheapened at first by mass awards, like those to the entire 27th Maine Volunteers in July, 1863. The 27th agreed to extend their enlistments and stay on to defend Washington, D.C. in case Gettysburg turned out to be a Confederate victory. In return, a grateful Congress gave each and every man a Congressional Medal of Honor. In 1916 an act of Congress withdrew these mass awards and 911 CMH medals were officially rescinded.
On the Confederate side a ''generic'' bravery medal was authorized by the rebel congress on November 22, 1862. Awardees were to receive their medals and have their names inscribed on a ''Roll of Honor.'' Nothing ever came of the measure, however, and there is no officially authorized national Confederate medal for bravery or heroism like the Union's Congressional Medal of Honor. That is not to say there aren't some privately issued medals known that are called Confederate battle or bravery medals. There is the famous Newmarket Cross of Honor, for example, issued by the Virginia Military Institute Alumni Association in honor of the V.M.I. Battalion of Cadets who fell in the hopeless fight at Newmarket, Virginia on May 15, 1864, just days after the trench battles of Spotsylvania. Newmarket represents the highpoint of selfless devotion to the rebel cause and deserves its medal, but it was not issued at the time. The one medal issued for a Confederate battle honor that has the best claim to being ''semi-official'' is the medal made for the Jefferson Davis Guards for their heroic conduct during the short and sharp defense of the Sabine River Pass on September 8, 1863.
The Davis Guards was a 47 strong detachment of Company F, First Texas Heavy Artillery, Army of the Confederate States of America, Lieutenant Richard Dowling then commanding. They were all Houstoner's in their early 20's, or younger. Their unit had been nicknamed both ''The Houston Rough and Ready Company'' and ''The Fighting Irish.'' Their defense of the Sabine River Pass saved Houston, and all of Texas, from a Union invasion. Jefferson Davis, himself, wrote of the battle ''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.'' The Davis Guards medal was commissioned by the grateful citizens of Houston, Texas, to honor the first anniversary of the defense of the approaches to their city. Friar Felix Zoppa da Connobio headed the movement to provide the men with silver medals and Charles Gottchalk engraved them.
Each member of the Davis Guards received a medal, whether he was present at the battle or not. As awarded, the medals were unnamed; engraved names vary in style and execution. CSA Major General John B. Magruder prepared special unit citations for the Guards and may actually have presented them with their medals. The Congress of the CSA enacted a special resolution of thanks and some $3,000 was raised for the guardsmen at a special banquet given in their honor in Houston. The Davis Guards medal is of the highest importance to the military history of the Confederacy. For example, it can be noted that a specimen was actually presented to President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis. Davis received his medal by virtue of being honorary commander of his namesake, the Davis Guards.
In a letter to Ed. Frossard printed in Numisma dated July 12, 1880, Jefferson Davis told the following story. It underscores how significant Davis felt both the Sabine battle and its award medal were: ''The very remarkable defense of the Sabine Pass, in 1863, was commemorated by a medal struck in silver, one of which was presented to each member of the Company that made the defense, and another one to me, I having been elected an honorary member of the Company at the time of its organization. After my capture in 1865, and while I was in Fortress Monroe, my wife held as a prisoner on board the transport ship Clyde, some officers were sent to examine her luggage. Among other articles pillaged from her trunks, was the medal to which I have referred.'' Davis continued that he understood that his medal had later been sold and he authorized Frossard to try to recover it. Its whereabouts are still unknown today.
In terms of its military outcome, its effect upon the war, the Battle of the Sabine River Pass was a small affair by Civil War standards. In terms of public opinion, however, the Confederate victory was a great southern morale builder. On July 4, 1863 the southern stronghold of Vicksburg had surrendered, giving the North control of the Mississippi and splitting the Confederacy in two. At that very same time, in the eastern theater, Lee's attempt to bring the war home to northern soil ended in defeat in the Gettysburg campaign. Overseas, Confederate diplomats were unable to convince Queen Victoria's government or France's Napoleon III that such defeats would be overcome in the future. As a result, Confederate rams being built in French and English shipyards were confiscated. If the South needed anything in late summer, 1863, it was a boost in morale both home and abroad. The victorious Sabine River fight gave them that.
The Sabine River forms the boundary of Texas and Louisiana for much of its length. The river flows into the Sabine Lake, with Sabine City situated nearby. The city was a terminus for the railroad leading to Houston, the state capital. Midway through 1863 Secretary of War Stanton became alarmed that the French armies supporting Maximilian in Mexico would march into Texas to reclaim the western portion of the state as Mexican sovereign territory. Stanton determined to mount an expedition into Texas and take its capital, to establish Union claims on the state in case Mexican troops should invade into the west. Union Major General William B. Franklin was given command of the expedition into Texas, which sailed from New Orleans on September 5, 1863 with 5,000 troops aboard about 20 steamers. Franklin's battle plan depended upon the capture of the pass leading from Sabine Lake into the Sabine River. With the pass in his hands his men could command the city and its railroad and the railroad led directly into Houston, the campaign's ultimate target. All hinged on control of the pass.
The Sabine River Pass was defended by a small earthwork mounting eight guns, three of which were modern rifled Whitworths made in England. Manning the guns were about 41 members of the Davis Guards, all Irishmen from Houston. Since the draught over the Sabine River was quite shallow Franklin was forced to lay off the bar and send over his lightest vessels to force the pass. He appointed acting Lieutenant Frederick Crocker to command the lead force, giving him four steamers converted to ironclads and about 150 sharpshooters divided among them. Crocker was ordered to cross the bar, silence the fort's guns with his own fire, and land his detachment. Another Union force, under volunteer Brigadier General Godfrey Weitzel, was to follow Crocker's lead and storm and carry the fort's defenses.
On the morning of September 8 Crocker and General Franklin made a long reconnaissance of the fort which gave them a clear picture of its defenses. It also gave the defenders a clear picture of the enemy's intentions. At 3 P.M. that afternoon Crocker began his attack. The long delay was fatal. Crocker led his vessels across the bar, firing his guns as he came. The defenders held their return fire until the Union vessels were directly abreast of their guns, and then they opened fire with a salvo that bracketed the Union ships. Their third shot disabled the Union gunboat Sachem with a shell through her boiler. Lieutenant Crocker's Clifton was next and she was soon hit and disabled. Both Union ships struck their colors and surrendered. Rebel steamers took them in tow and their crews into captivity. The U.S.S. Arizona grounded under fire but was kedged off later on. She remained in the channel still under fire, covering the withdrawal of the Union landing force.
The whole fight was over in 45 minutes. The Davis Guards fired off 137 rounds without stopping to swab their guns, a measure of the intensity of the battle (an unswabbed gun barrel could ignite the next powder charge loaded and kill a gun's crew in a blowback). The Guard lost not a man killed or wounded. Union losses were 19 killed, 9 wounded, 315 captured. CSA Lieutenant Dowling and most of his garrison escorted the Union prisoners off the battlefield. The handful of gunners left to man the fort's defenses were ordered to march around inside making as much noise as they could, to fool the Union pickets into thinking the garrison was stronger than it really was. Union General Franklin withdrew his landing force under covering fire from U.S.S. Arizona's guns and the federal invasion of Texas was repulsed.
Southern newspapers carried dispatches and copperplate engravings of the battle for the next several weeks. Northern newspapers were harsh in their criticism of the federal campaign and later pointed out that more than one-third of all Union shipping losses in 1863 had occurred in the short action at Sabine, Texas! News of the Sabine Pass defeat, followed quickly by reports from bloody Chickamauga, sent New York gold prices up 5% and Confederate bonds actually rose two to three percent on the London market!
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