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She
stood only 4 feet 10 inches tall, but folks learned quickly not to cross Catherine
"Kate" Magill Dorman -- a little known Texas heroine of the Civil War.
Born in Georgia on Oct. 7, 1828, Kate married Arthur Magill in 1844. Seven years
later, the couple came to Texas, settling at Sabine Pass. They brought with them
the disinterred remains of their five-year-old daughter, reburying her near their
new home.
In 1852 they built an inn they called the Catfish Hotel. With
a wharf extending into Sabine Lake from the front of the two-story hotel, customers
did not have far to walk. Capable of accommodating 24 guests, the Catfish soon
acquired a reputation for having good food as well as comfortable beds.
Kate also had a reputation. She set a fine table, but she did not brook any guff
from her guests or acquaintances, be they rowdy sailors or sharp-tongued women.
People talked for years about the time a local woman known as "Dutch Margaret"
stormed into the dining room at the Catfish and assailed Kate in "blackguard language."
The
diminutive hostess let "Dutch Margaret" have it right back, settling the matter
as far as she was concerned. But some time later, three of Kate's lady friends
confronted "Dutch Margaret" on the street and took to her with their parasols.
"Dutch Margaret" filed a lawsuit alleging she had suffered a miscarriage from
the female version of a caning. The lawsuit got tossed out of court, and three
months later "Dutch Margaret" bore a healthy son who would have been Exhibit A
for the defense had the matter gone to trial.
In addition to helping out
at the hotel, Kate's husband served as the engineer on the steamer T.J. Smith,
a mail packet operating out of the pass. The 100-foot vessel cut through the water
"like lightning with a thunderbolt after it," but on Nov. 2, 1859, the packet's
boiler exploded. Magill died in the accident, leaving Kate and her two young daughters
alone in the small coastal community.
Kate mourned the death of her husband,
but in 1860 she married John Dorman, captain of a cotton steamer named the Doctor
Massie.
Through it all, Kate had continued to operate the Catfish Hotel.
The Civil War, what with blockade runners and the establishment of a Confederate
coastal artillery installation called Fort Griffin, at first improved Kate's business.
But
life soon got harder. Yellow fever struck Sabine Pass in the late summer of 1862,
killing at least 100 people and afflicting scores more. Most of the other residents
fled the area, praying they and their families would not come down with the dread
disease.
Kate and two of her friends, Sarah Ann King and Sarah Vosburg,
stayed behind to care for the sick Confederate soldiers. A short time later, three
Yankee gunboats appeared and fired a few shells at the town.
A shore party
burned the Confederate barracks and stable, appropriating from the Dormans a horse
and cart to mount a howitzer they had carried ashore. Kate saw what happened and
didn't like it a bit. As the Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph later reported, "Mrs.
Dorman...became perfectly enraged and...gave them just such a tongue-lashing as
only a brave woman would dare do."
Kate shook her fist at the bluecoats,
saying she hoped the Rebels killed them. She'd do it herself, she went on, if
she had 25 able men. Whether intimated or just being polite, the federal soldiers
returned the confiscated horse and cart. Still, they had a warning for Captain
Dorman: "Keep his damned wife's mouth shut, [or] they would hang him."
The
Yankees left the area, but a year later they returned, intending to land 4,000
troops in Texas. A four-vessel flotilla bombarded the Confederate fort, located
only about 300 yards from the Catfish.
During the battle, with federal
shells exploding all around, Kate and her friend Sarah Vosburg worked over a hot
stove in the hotel's kitchen, brewing coffee and frying meat and doughnuts for
the defenders. As the fight continued, she hitched up the same horse and cart
the Yankees had appropriated the year before and went to the fort to feed the
artillerymen. Hoping to further fortify the fortifiers, Kate delivered a gallon
of whiskey in addition to the food and coffee.
Bolstered by a strong sense
of duty and stronger whiskey, 47 Irishmen under Houston bartender Dick Dowling
out-gunned the federals, putting two gunboats out of action and forcing the other
two to make a course for New Orleans. The battle didn't win the war for the Confederacy,
but in thwarting the invasion, Dowling and his boys prevented a lot of bloodshed
in Texas.
The woman who contributed to that victory stayed at Sabine Pass
the rest of her life, surviving a devastating hurricane in 1886. She died on Christmas
Eve in 1897, having outlived her second husband by more than a decade.
In February 1900, a Galveston newspaper columnist raised money to buy train tickets
for two old rebels living at the Confederate Home in Austin. Among the last survivors
of the men who had participated in the battle, they wanted to visit the scene
of their victory one last time.
Arriving in Sabine Pass, the first thing
the two elderly Irishmen said was, "Where's Kate? We want to see Kate!"
©
Mike Cox | | |
