Review - "Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operations" by Edward Cotham

[Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operations by Edward T. Cotham, Jr. (University of Tennessee Press, 2024). Softcover, maps, photos, illustrations, appendix, orders of battle, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages:xiii,170. ISBN:978-1-62190-913-2. $24.95]

It's easy to see why Galveston, Texas was considered a strategic point of interest for both sides during the Civil War. Galveston was Texas's most populous city, its most important commercial center, and it possessed the state's finest deep water port. Its rail connection with the interior also made it a prime base for a Union campaign to seize Houston. The occupation of both places would make Union forces masters of the heart of Texas and its limited modern transportation network. Initially determined to be indefensible with the meager resources available at the time, Galveston was reluctantly abandoned by its Confederate Army defenders. It was quickly occupied in turn by a small Union garrison supported by a naval squadron that easily outgunned anything the Confederates could muster against it. Before the Union foothold on Texas soil could be exploited, however, the port city was recaptured during a dramatic and improbably successful New Year's Day 1863 land and sea assault. Compounding the US Navy's embarrassment, just ten days later the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama lured out to sea and sank the Galveston blockader USS Hatteras. City and island remained in Confederate hands for the duration of the war.

The hits to US naval pride only continued. Approximately sixty miles up the coast, another Confederate naval attack surprised and defeated a US blockading force at Sabine Pass in 1862, and on September 8 of the following year a tiny earthwork battery turned back a massive combined operation that outnumbered the defenders roughly 100 to 1. In the fall of 1863, a two-pronged grand campaign, which consisted of a large overland expedition through western Louisiana and a substantial amphibious landing at the mouth of the Rio Grande that was accompanied by a follow-up movement up the coast, also failed (through a variety of reasons) to knock Texas out of the war. The decision-making involved in all of these events, many of which had military and political repercussions felt far and wide, is examined in Edward Cotham's Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operations.

Fast approaching two-dozen volumes, University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series possesses a unique analytical framework that has proven its value over time. Rather than repeat background material that has already been covered numerous times here on this site, please refer to previous CWBA reviews (such as this one here) for the series definition of a "critical decision" and brief explanation of the flow and structure of the steps involved in the decision analysis.

With published expertise [see Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston (1998) and Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae (2004), both gold standard histories of their topics] and over thirty years of ongoing research at his disposal, Cotham is the ideal author for this particular series installment. Calling upon that unique body of knowledge and using it to identify key moments of contingency, Cotham's approach to critical decision selection along with his situational summaries, option formulations, result(s)/impact discussions, and visions of alternate scenarios all display levels of nuance that a less robustly informed contributor tasked with the matter at hand would find very difficult to match. At first glance, it might appear unlikely that one could come up with this high a number of critical decisions (21) for a series of mostly small-scale events that unfolded in the war's tertiary theater (and this reviewer still struggled with one or two), but Cotham's keenly developed arguments and analysis consistently remove most lingering doubts.

The typical book in the series addresses a campaign and/or battle fought between major eastern or western theater field armies, making tactical-level critical decision analysis a common feature. However, Cotham notes that in his own area of study it was faraway decisions that most often and most deeply impacted the course of events. Also, an unusually high number (for the series as a whole) of his volume's critical decisions are personnel related. As Cotham amply demonstrates, leadership selection alone went a long way toward explaining why the underdog Confederates were so successful and how it was that Union forces failed in such disastrous fashion. President Davis's selection of John B. Magruder, that general's reputation under a dark cloud from allegations related to underperformance during the Seven Days, matched man and moment with results few could have foreseen, and the officers Magruder chose as his own principal subordinates no less so. On the other side, US naval hero David Glasgow Farragut, commander of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, made leadership appointments on the Texas coast that he would come to bitterly regret. As Cotham outlines, key officers at Galveston and Sabine Pass served their faraway superior poorly, delivering some of the few black marks against Farragut's otherwise sterling Civil War record.

Magruder proved to be a particularly interesting case to examine. So many Confederate generals thrust into unenviable coastal command situations similar to what Magruder faced wallowed in pessimistic passivity when tasked with pitting their own meager manpower and resources against Union combined operations having the overpowering capability of concentrating superior land and naval forces at nearly any point of their choosing. Magruder broke the mold, confidently seizing the initiative and making his own luck with boldness, creative planning, and decisive leadership. During this shining moment of his Civil War career, all of his decisions struck gold. Like Robert E. Lee did at Chancellorsville, Magruder employed against a dangerously superior enemy at Galveston a complicated battle plan with a lot of moving parts. Such high-risk plans often produced disaster, but, as Cotham effectively reminds us, it could also be an important factor in achieving success against long odds. Unfortunately for the rest of Magruder's Civil War career, his signal success along the Texas coast in 1863 did little to restore his profile as general worthy of being entrusted with coveted commands on major fronts.

Much like historian Donald Frazier has recently done in his Texas and Louisiana series of military history books, Cotham insightfully outlines significant connections (through decisions made and their results) between events in the Trans-Missisippi theater and future plans for the war on the other side of the river. Most notable among them are those involved in delaying the targeting of the key Gulf blockade-running port of Mobile, Alabama.

A mixture of modern maps and others borrowed from the atlas to the O.R. accompany Cotham's text. In the other series titles, the featured tour appendix is designed to be closely tied to the critical decisions presented before it. With his own subject matter more geographically dispersed than the others and with so many of its critical decisions produced from great distances, Cotham elected instead to include a walking tour of Galveston Civil War sites and some brief recommendations for hardy souls willing to take the 133-mile roundabout drive to Sabine Pass.

Joining the top rank of the Command Decisions in America’s Civil War collection of titles, Edward Cotham's Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns, in addition to its atypical features recited above, carries some notable series firsts. The author points out that his book is the first to have a major focus on ship vs. ship and ship vs. shore movements and encounters, and one can also add that it is the first Trans-Missisippi theater volume in the series. Another one, an 1864 Red River Campaign book, is soon to follow, with hopefully even more in the works.