Spaight's 11th Battalion
Sabine Pass, Jefferson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Commanded by Col. Ashley W. Spaight, the 11th Battalion of Texas Volunteers, Confederate States Army, was nicknamed the "Swamp Angels." Tracing its origins to the "Sabine Pass Guards" militia formed in 1861, the battalion served during the Civil War to defend the Texas Gulf Coast and Louisiana borders from Federal incursions. Many of them lost their lives during an 1862 yellow fever epidemic at Sabine Pass. The battalion was comprised of southeast Texas residents, many of whom became community and business leaders after the war. (1990)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Ashley W. Spaight's 11th Battalion of Texas Volunteers—the "Swamp Angels"—grew out of the Sabine Pass Guards militia of 1861 and served the Confederacy defending the Texas Gulf Coast and the Louisiana border against Federal raids. Many of its men died not in battle but in the yellow fever epidemic that swept Sabine Pass in 1862. Those who survived went home to become community and business leaders across southeast Texas.
Why it matters
The battalion is a reminder that Civil War coastal defense—and the disease that so often killed more soldiers than combat—was fought far from the war's famous fields.
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Related people
- · Ashley W. Spaight
Related events
- · 1862 yellow fever epidemic at Sabine Pass
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fort Sabine
Sabine Pass, TX
When war came in 1861, the citizens of Sabine City formed a Committee of Safety and, with enslaved and free labor, raised a dirt-and-timber earthwork to guard the strategic Sabine Pass channel into East Texas and western Louisiana. In September 1862 a Union steamer and two schooners battered the fort; with only about sixty defenders and yellow fever spreading, Confederate Major Josephus S. Irvine spiked the guns and abandoned it. Lessons from its fall shaped nearby Fort Griffin, site of the famous 1863 Confederate victory at Sabine Pass.
Federal Fatalities at the Battle of Sabine Pass
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At the Battle of Sabine Pass on September 8, 1863, Lt. Richard W. Dowling and fewer than fifty Confederate Davis Guards repelled a Union naval assault, disabling the gunboats Clifton and Sachem and taking more than 300 federal prisoners. Many Union sailors died, some killed when the Sachem's boiler exploded, and Confederate crews aboard the Uncle Ben helped recover the dead. The victors buried a reported 28 Union troops in a long ditch near the Dorman Hotel, a site later confirmed by twentieth-century excavation though much of it has eroded away.
Capture of the USS Morning Light and USS Velocity
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When Texas seceded, the Union blockaded its ports, and the closeness of Sabine Pass to Galveston made it a prize for both sides. In January 1863, Confederate Gen. John B. Magruder ordered an attack on the two Union sentry ships using "cottonclads"—riverboats armored with cotton bales. In a two-hour fight on January 21, forces including Lt. Richard "Dick" Dowling's all-Irish Davis Guard neutralized the frigate Morning Light and forced the Velocity to surrender, capturing both ships, $10,000 in supplies, and 109 prisoners.
Site of Spindle Top Hill Confederate Camp
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From 1862 to 1864, Colonel A. W. Spaight's Battalion of the 2nd Texas Infantry camped on Spindle Top Hill, its ranks drawn from Jefferson, Liberty, and Chambers counties. Their presence helped guard this stretch of the Texas coast against Federal invasion during the Civil War. The state erected this marker in 1936.