The earliest of the two articles I read was a report on the unveiling of the Dick Dowling Monument that happened March 17, 1905, and the second dealt with the rededication and relocation ceremony on March 17, 1940. When I chose the two articles I was hoping for some sort of St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans, but the absolute focus on his Irish heritage would come at a later date. Both articles make reference to his heritage, noting the Order of the Hibernian’s role in building the monument in particular, but Dowling was regarded and accepted as a war hero so that this heritage did not take over either article.
The 1905 article is very lengthy and goes into all manner of details regarding the construction of the statue, the funding of the statue, and the history of the Battle of Sabine Pass. Veterans from the battle, or at least one, still lived, and there is a general sense of reverence for the bold Confederate soldiers. Interestingly, the article makes a strong assertion about the number of soldiers fighting at Sabine Pass:
There were in all forty-one of the Davis Guards, exclusive of the commander (a list printed elsewhere shows forty-two, but Peter O’Hara, who was a member of the Guards and whose name appears on the roster, was sick in the hospital and did not participate in the fight).
This assertion is later contradicted in the 1940 article:
Tribute was paid to the memory of Dick Dowling and his band of 47 Davis Guards who repulsed a far superior federal force at Fort Griffin in Sabine Pass on September 18, 1863
With the names of the soldiers printed on the side of the monument, how can there possibly be such a large discrepancy? Wikipedia claims there were forty-six soldiers excluding Dowling, and that is the number of soldiers listed on the base of Dowling’s statue (including the infirm Peter O’Hara). It is a minor point, but the 1905 article just seems so sure of itself that I find myself bemused by the apparent displacement of four to six men. The article makes other interesting mistakes such as calling Frank Tiech Frank Fiede, so perhaps the assertions of history in this article cannot be taken completely seriously.
Two influential men who were involved with the Confederacy, T. J. Goree and John H. Reagan, who, oddly enough, both died within a day of one another of pneumonia are mentioned in the governor’s speech at the unveiling. There is a general sense of nostalgia and reverence for the Confederacy, and whenever something regarding it was mentioned there was apparently “great applause” in the crowd. In a section describing the history of the monument itself, the Dick Dowling U.C.V. is described as being incapable of raising more than $300 or suceeding “in building a monument that would be either a credit to themselves or worthy of the magnificent deeds of heroism it was designed to commemorate.” In this narrative, the Irishmen come in with their abounding amounts of money and save the day, allowing for the funding for the monument. Despite the clear reverence for the memory of the Confederacy, the ability of the former soldiers is considered to be firmly in the past.
The old battle scarred veterans if left to their own resources would have secured a fund sufficient to have erected a very crude monument, but one that would have been neither an ornament to the city nor worthy of the brave deeds of that heroic band, the memory of whose deeds of heroism are worthy to be inscribed upon a monument that towers to heaven in proclaiming deeds of valor that have no parallel in history.
Much less filled with hyperbole, the article in the St. Patrick’s Day, 1940 Houston Chronicle describes a service held for Dowling following the movement of the memorial from in front of City Hall to Sam Houston Park. There is no mention of the Irish groups other than mentioning that Dowling “is held in reverence by the Irish,” and focus is very much on the U.C.V. and the U.D.C.’s memorial of Dowling. The article is placed in the middle of a page of general Texas state news, but it is the only article with an accompanying picture. The majority of the page is covered with an advertisement for Economy Shoe Corner, and much of the paper is filled with advertisements for various sorts of Easter clothes. World news focuses on figuring out what Italy’s role in the War is, and there does seem to be a general concern with events in Europe. While the concern about war may shift focus of Dowling away from his Irish heritage, it is not enough to eliminate Aunt Jenny’s St. Patrick’s Day cake recipe on the next page.