river mouth. The key U.S. Navy target in the First Battle of Sabine Pass was the original earthworks thrown up on the Texas bank of the Sabine River about three miles (4.8 km) south of Sabine City, a tiny town with some wharfs on the east side of its main street. The U.S. Army battle plan was that after the U.S. Navy gunboats silenced the guns of Fort Sabine, the wave of about 200 U.S. Army infantrymen, riding the deck of one of the main fleet's reserve gunboats, would debark immediately below (east) of the fort and effected the fort's surrender. The main fleet, less than five miles offshore and well beyond Confederate gunfire, contained as many as 20 vessels, which carried U.S. Army regulars—as many as 5,000 men, according to Official records. A small artillery was included. The company-size initial landing force was to then take Sabine City and secure the area for the main force. After the main force was landed and united with the initial assault company the intention was to march the few miles north to the railroad and cut the railroad between Houston and Beaumont. Once done, the Army force would march east, presumably destroying the rail line as it went, and attack Beaumont. This action would deny Sabine Pass and the natural shallow-water harbor Sabine Lake upstream from the Gulf about 6 miles (9.6 km) to blockade runners. Considering the dominant size of the Union expeditionary force, taking control of Sabine Pass and environs was not expected to be a great challenge to the U.S. forces. To prevent intervention from Confederate forces in Louisiana that consisted of Brigadier General Thomas Green's First Cavalry Brigade and Brigadier General Alfred Mouton’s infantry division, the Union division of Major General Francis J. Herron moved to Morganza as a diversion, which precipitated the Battle of Stirling's Plantation. Fort Sabine had been renamed "Fort Griffin" in honor of an earlier commander, Confederate Lt. Colonel W. H. Griffin, although this was not shown on Union maps since the First Battle of Sabine Pass in late September 1862. The Confederate detachment residing at the Sabine Pass fort was the Jeff Davis Guards (named for Confederate president Jefferson Davis), a company of mostly Irish-American men from the Houston and Galveston area, recently had merged into the First Texas Heavy Artillery. They were stationed at the hastily built earthworks a mile (1.6 km)