Sabine Pass was a Civil War engagement fought in Texas, 1862. It was a Union victory.
On September 23, 1862, the Union Steamer Kensington, Schooner Rachel Seaman, and Mortar Schooner Henry James appeared off the bar at Sabine Pass. The next morning, the two schooners crossed the bar, took position, and began firing on the Confederate shore battery. The shots from both land and shore fell far short of the targets. The ships then moved nearer until their projectiles began to fall amongst the Confederate guns. The Confederate cannons, however, still could not hit the ships. After dark, the Confederates evacuated, taking as much property as possible with them and spiking the four guns left behind. On the morning of the 25th, the schooners moved up to the battery and destroyed it while Acting Master Frederick Crocker, commander of the expedition, received the surrender of the town. Union control of Sabine Pass made later incursions into the interior possible.
On September 24 and 25, 1862, United States Navy warships opened fire on a Confederate stronghold just below Sabine City, an action later remembered as the Bombardment of Fort Sabine and known formally as the First Battle of Sabine Pass. This engagement marked the first time the Union Navy had shelled a Confederate fort during the war and stood as the high point of a string of clashes, both on water and on land, near where the Sabine River meets the coast of Texas. The action came a full four weeks ahead of the Union fleet's initial armed push into Galveston Bay, which followed the Battle of Galveston Harbor. Beyond reinforcing the naval blockade along the Texas shoreline, the assault and subsequent capture of the pass served a strategic purpose: discouraging Confederate troops from marching southwest along the coast to bolster Galveston's defenses. The operation also aimed to clear a path for a Union invasion of Texas itself, an effort that would not come until nearly a year later, when combined naval and army forces attempted it at the Second Battle of Sabine Pass.
Sabine Lake, formed where the Neches and Sabine rivers come together, drains to the sea through the waterway known as Sabine Pass. A rail spur linked the port at Sabine City to the larger rail line stretching from the eastern edge of Texas toward Houston and Galveston. Though shallow at its entrance over the bar, the port still handled coastal shipping and, more and more, vessels running the blockade.
Rear Admiral David Farragut, who led the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, urged Master Frederick Crocker of the steamer USS Kensington to seize the port in September 1862. To help with the effort, Farragut also sent Acting Master Quincy Hooper aboard the schooner USS Rachel Seaman. The two ships reached the pass on September 23, where they met up with Acting Master Lewis Pennington commanding the mortar schooner USS Henry Janes. After discussing their options, the officers decided against risking the Kensington, whose draft ran too deep for the bar, and chose instead to rely on the schooners for the assault. By late afternoon the Rachel Seaman had crossed successfully, but the Henry Janes, sitting just slightly deeper in the water, ran aground once the tide began to ebb.
When dawn broke on September 24, Pennington's vessel sat trapped in mud, the fort visible in the distance. He gave the command to open fire, and the Rachael Seaman soon added its guns to the exchange. Confederate gunners answered the challenge, though their rounds landed short, a fate shared by much of the naval bombardment. Five hours passed before the Henry Janes finally worked free of the muck and pushed into the pass. Once both schooners had closed to within a mile and a half of the fort, they commenced firing together at 5:30 in the afternoon.
Defending the position were twenty eight artillerymen at the batteries, backed by thirty cavalry troops, yet their aging weapons lacked the range to strike the Union ships effectively. The Confederates withdrew to cover, coming out again only after darkness fell and the shelling had stopped. Major Josephus S. Irvine, commanding the Confederate garrison, surveyed the damage and gave orders to spike the guns before pulling his men out under cover of night. Because the fort's guns had gone silent during daylight hours, Crocker tried to seize it that evening by sending in launches, but the attempt failed when no route could be found through the massive oyster reef splitting the channel.
Come morning on September 25, Crocker sent three rounds toward the fort and, receiving no reply, landed a party to discover it abandoned. Advancing on Sabine City, he encountered representatives who came forward to declare the town's surrender. With this, the Union had claimed its first major city in Texas. No casualties were recorded by either side.
On the night of September 27, 1862, a small expedition of thirty three men in three boats pushed twelve miles up Sabine Lake toward the mouth of Taylor's Bayou, hoping to burn a railroad bridge there. The men withdrew before finishing the job, and the structure survived intact. In the days that followed, through the close of the month, two Union vessels added to the tally of captured prizes: Crocker's "Kensington" seized the British schooner Velocity, while Hooper's "Rachael Seaman" took the schooner "Dart". A few days later, on October 3, Crocker seized yet another vessel, the blockade runner "Dan", this time in Calcasieu Pass, and put it to use ferrying his force back up Sabine Lake for another attempt at the bridge. His conduct throughout these actions at Sabine Pass and Calcasieu Pass earned him a promotion to Acting Volunteer Lieutenant, granted by Admiral Farragut himself for gallantry.
The gains proved short lived. Word reached the Union side that a sizable Confederate force was massing for a counterattack, and Master Hooper, who by then held command of the position, chose to pull the Rachael Seaman back across the bar into the open Gulf. This retreat left the town and Fort Sabine undefended, and with that withdrawal, control of Sabine Pass, the lake, and the river slipped back into Confederate hands.
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