At Sabine Pass on September 8, 1863, Confederates in Fort Griffin repulsed a fleet seeking to land thousands of Federal soldiers in a renowned Civil War victory. Lieutenant Richard W. Dowling, a Houston businessman in civilian life, commanded the fort during the assault, and his men, mostly Irishmen from Galveston and Houston, had served together since February 1861 as Company F, Texas Heavy Artillery. In 1863 Sabine Pass was a center for blockade-running through which the Confederacy exported cotton and obtained vital goods such as medicines and arms. Company F built Fort Griffin, named for Lieutenant Colonel W. H. Griffin, Confederate commander at Sabine City, and designed by Colonel Valery Sulakowski, formerly of the Austrian Army. The earthwork fort was strengthened with railroad iron and ship's timbers and was still unfinished when the Confederates learned that 22 ships were approaching. Dowling kept watch and ordered no response to the early Federal shelling, but when the first ships entered range, the battle began. Dowling himself served as one of the gunners, and the fort fired 137 shells at the targets.