In my blog post on Dick Dowling, I wondered what happened to the men who served under Dowling at Sabine Pass after the war. While this post will not focus on this question, I would like to acknowledge that this question was partially answered by the Dowling archives at the Houston Public Library. For example, the Historical Souvenir book of the Dowling Camp lists members of the Davis Guards, especially those who died in 1925 when the book was published. The writings of the Dick Dowling Monument association also attempted to find out the backgrounds of Dowling’s men, contacting former solider and eliminating the names of soldiers who deserted the Davis Guards after the Battle of Sabine Pass.
While it would be really fascinating to uncover the backgrounds of all of the members of the Davis Guards who served at Sabine Pass, what I found interested while I browsed the archives on the Houston Public Library’s website was the emphasis on Dowling’s Irish background. When the Confederacy fell out of favor in the United States, Dowling fell into complete obscurity in the city that he saved from Union occupation. However, the focus on his Irish heritage is important; the Davis Guards were mainly Irish immigrants from Houston and Galveston. The statue commemorating Dowling and the Davis Guards was funded both by Irish heritage groups as well as Confederate veterans. And the monument’s dedication occurred on St. Patrick’s Day in 1905.
When the Confederacy fell out of favor in the United States, it was Irish heritage groups that took over the mantainance and preservation of the Dowling monument in Houston. Articles preserved in Neta V. Taylor’s scrapbook demonstrated the United Confederate Veterans’s dedication to the preservation of the statue and Dowling’s memory, many of the articles focus on Dowling’s heritage rather than his heroism at Sabine Pass. In The Houston Post’s August 23, 1958 article “Dowling’s 5th Sword Missing,” the author writes, “Perhaps somewhere in a fern-banked dell in Ireland there may be a cache of rusted swords” (Page 4). Almost all of the articles on the disappearing swords of Dick Dowling somehow mention Ireland.
By the late 1960s, it is clear that Irish heritage groups are the ones who are caring for Dowling’s monument. In 1989, “The Dick Dowling Irish Heritage Society” was created to help preserve the statue. President Larry Miggins stated in his introductory letter, “My family and I have cleaned the statue for the past twenty years and I can vouch for its deteriorating condition” (RGA33-b2f23-22). For Miggins and others, it was clear that an Irish heritage society would need to adopt the monument to prevent it from deteriorating further, allowing Dick Dowling to fall into further obscurity. Together with the Houston Municipal Art Commission, the Dick Dowling Irish Heritage Society had the statue refurbished and dedicated at Hermann Park on March 17, 1997.
It is understandable why Dick Dowling chose to serve in the Confederate military. The Confederate cause was similar to the plight of the Irish, with the British attempting to suppress Irish culture and language during the 19th century. It is noted in the speech given at the dedication ceremony that only 36% of native Irishmen knew the Irish language by 1851 (SC1268-f1-24). Similarly, the American South was fighting against the Union who wished to restrict the expansion of slavery, their way of life. For that reason, Irish men like Dowling and the Davis Guards were willing to fight vociferously for the Confederacy, despite owning no slaves. This raises a question, why didn’t more Irishmen fight for the Confederacy, where they were respected as heroes? While an obvious answer is that there was more industrial opportunity in the North, Dowling managed to find success in the Southern cities. The Irish were treated with disdain in the North, viewed as intruders on the American way of life and hated for taking lower wage jobs from “true Americans.” The Southern identity, especially during the Civil War was more on par with the Irish identity in relation to Great Britain. So my question is, why did so few Irish men fight for a cause that they could truly identify with?
Elizabeth, I really appreciate your insight and thought towards Irish participation in the American Civil War on behalf of the Confederacy, most notably the Davis Guard. After reading Edward Cotham’s “Sabine Pass,” however, I may be able to shed some light on a few of the questions that you raise. With regards to Irish soldiers, the vast majority actually fought for the Union throughout the war. Cotham suggests that the most plausible explanation for this lopsided participation has to do with the large amounts of easily-impressible Irish immigrants flowing through Northern cities like New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Many of these immigrants would have signed up for the Union Army immediately after landing in America as it was a ready opportunity for employment in a foreign country that held significant anti-Irish sentiment.
So why were Dick Dowling and the Davis Guard among the few Irish to fight for the Confederacy? Cotham’s answer to this question comes late in the book and has less to do with the Confederate cause and more to do with personal honor. As you mentioned, the Davis Guard was comprised primarily of Irish dockworkers from Houston and Galveston. Therefore, their stand against the Union Army at Sabine Pass was more about protection of their adopted homeland and less about promoting the cause of the Confederacy (states’ rights, slavery etc.). Evidence of this Irish disassociation with the Confederate cause also exists in the fact that after Sabine Pass, several members of the idle Davis Guard defected and went to fight for the Union in search of combat experience. Cotham hints that it can be concluded that the Davis Guard were fighting less for the Confederacy at Sabine Pass and more for their Irish brethren next to them.
You also mentioned a similarity between the Confederate cause and the Irish struggle against the British. This is indeed a possibility, but it remains unlikely in my mind seeing that the British were well-known Confederate sympathizers throughout the war. It remains debatable how close England ever came to intervening on behalf of the Confederacy, however they did build two Confederate warships, most notably the CSS Alabama. So, while the Irish could have commiserated with the Confederates, it is improbable that they did so with England in mind.
Overall, the Irish faced adversity in the North and the South, where the Davis Guard’s victory at Sabine Pass did little to reduce anti-Irish sentiment (Cotham, p. 164). After reading “Sabine Pass,” it seems that the Davis Guard fought for the Confederacy because that’s where their home was. The scattered activity of several members after the Battle of Sabine Pass helps to confirm this. With regards to Irish participation, my interpretation of Cotham holds that factors such as personal honor, location, and economic opportunity often took precedence over which cause they could identify with.
Ryan, you certainly may be right that the Davis Guard fought for protection of home and essentially non-ideological reasons, though I think we need to approach that idea with caution and make sure we can find evidence to support it. After all, the idea that Confederates weren’t really fighting for slavery but instead for the defense of home from Yankee invaders is precisely what the “Lost Cause” promoters in the postwar period wanted to assert. The question is, then, do we know this was the case for Dowling? Could there have been any reasons why they would have seen fit to support slavery and states’ rights and fight for those specific causes?