upstream (north) on the southwest bank of the Pass. When the battle began with the Union gunboats' bombardment on September 8, 1863, at the fort were forty-six men; all but two or three were members of the Davis Guards. Under the immediate command of Lieutenant Richard W. Dowling, the Davis Guards had mounted their unit's six old smoothbore cannon on the elevated platform of the small earthen fort. Although unimpressive to Union observers and scouts, the fort's gun positions were high enough to afford a clear view to the horizon for many miles: the flat marshlands stretched northeastward into Louisiana, westward toward Houston, southwestward toward Galveston, northward toward Port Arthur and Beaumont, and southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico. The nearest observation point affording a view of Fort Griffin, other than from the mast "top" of a naval vessel seaward of the Pass, was the Sabine Pass lighthouse on the Louisiana (opposite) side of Sabine Pass at the mouth of the Sabine River. Battle On the afternoon of September 8, 1863, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Frederick Crocker ("Acting Captain") was in command of the advance squadron composed of four gunboats. Crocker was a veteran officer of considerable recent experience in Union river-gunboat actions and blockade duty. His ship was the , a steam-powered side-wheeler. Besides Clifton, Crocker's advance squadron included Granite City, Sachem, and Arizona, all recently commissioned ironclad warships. Less than three miles southeast downriver, well out of range of the Confederate fort's cannons, were anchored seven U.S. Navy transports carrying most of the U.S. Army soldiers of the landing force. The U.S.S. Suffolk, hosting invasion force commander U.S. Army Major General Franklin and his staff, headed the seven-vessel squadron. Outside the principal Gulf shore sand bar, an additional two miles (3.2 km) downstream of this squadron, lay at anchor the remaining ships of the 22-vessel invasion fleet. The cited contemporary U.S. Army map shows the nominal positions of the bombardment fleet of four, the seven ships of the transport squadron, and the relative position farther out in the Gulf of the remaining vessels. The official reports of the battle generally reflect the map's information. The total number of Union infantry assault troops in the landing force is given as 5,000 infantrymen, which included 500 listed as aboard the Granite City, those aboard the six troop transports in the seven-ship squadron headed by Suffolk, plus an artillery company somewhere among