Visited the Sabine Pass Battleground State Park on Saturday. Up until then,about all I knew of the battle is what I read on the Civil War Trust site. The park is an hour and a half drive from where I live. The town of Sabine Pass wasn't much on 9/8/1863 and still isn't. The park isn't very big. It took about an hour and a half to read and see everything there was.
Learned some things. It was amazing that someone knew a fort needed to be built on that site and how to design and place it. The part of the banks of Sabine Pass where the fort stood have already eroded away. The river was actually narrower there at the time than it is now. They have a scale model of Fort Griffin there. The actual fort was 10 feet high and 370 feet long. It had 6 cannons. The fort was built by 500 slaves. The heat and humidity were brutal there on Saturday. Bet it was the same in 1863.
You can't really appreciate what it must've been like at the battle without visiting the park and looking at the layout and at the river. A lot of the wounded Union prisoners were horribly burned by hot water and steam when their ships were hit by cannon fire from the fort. The garrison and local citizens weren't equipped to handle them either. I definitely had the feeling of being on hallowed ground.
Took some notes while I was there. Wanna read up on some other things about the battle and participants. It was a good trip. Great way to spend a Saturday.
Learned some things. It was amazing that someone knew a fort needed to be built on that site and how to design and place it. The part of the banks of Sabine Pass where the fort stood have already eroded away. The river was actually narrower there at the time than it is now. They have a scale model of Fort Griffin there. The actual fort was 10 feet high and 370 feet long. It had 6 cannons. The fort was built by 500 slaves. The heat and humidity were brutal there on Saturday. Bet it was the same in 1863.
You can't really appreciate what it must've been like at the battle without visiting the park and looking at the layout and at the river. A lot of the wounded Union prisoners were horribly burned by hot water and steam when their ships were hit by cannon fire from the fort. The garrison and local citizens weren't equipped to handle them either. I definitely had the feeling of being on hallowed ground.
Took some notes while I was there. Wanna read up on some other things about the battle and participants. It was a good trip. Great way to spend a Saturday.