| Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989. | | | |
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| | | NUMBER: | 1987 |
| AUTHOR: | Richard William Dowling (1838–67) |
| QUOTATION: | I will not only give ’em battle, I will lick ’em! |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Lieutenant RICHARD W. (DICK) DOWLING, purported remark to a Confederate council of war urging him not to fight.—May M. Pray, Dick Dowling’s Battle, chapter 10, p. 108 (1936). Unverified.
During the Battle of Sabine Pass, September 8, 1863, the Confederates at Fort Griffin did defeat the Union forces trying to occupy southeast Texas. In forty-five minutes, Dowling and his forty-six men captured 350 prisoners, cannon, and two gunboats, while crippling a third, without suffering any casualties. |
| SUBJECTS: | Winning | | |
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