Whatever it was I am sure it compares precisely with one of the most significant battles in the history of the world.
An engagement which at its most significant redirected Union forces away from an entirely irrelevent theater of the War surely compares to the most famous in history which if lost by the Spartans could have changed the face of the Western world.
Those of us down here in Texas would have to respectfully disagree with you on that. If you knew your history, you would also know that Texas ports were among the last to remain in confederate hands and accordingly drew a good ammount of yankee attention. Union assaults were made on Corpus Christi and Galveston, not to mention the Sabine campaign. The reason you cast Texas as an "irrelevant" theater stems primarily from the fact that, despite many yankee efforts to advance into it, the confederates successfully impeded them at the coast. At the time of the war, Texas became a major frustration for Butler and the yankees in general following New Orleans...even to the point that they lied to the northern newspapers and claimed to have taken Corpus when they had not done so because conceding their frustrations would have been embarassing for a state they thought they could overrun.
surely compares to the most famous in history which if lost by the Spartans could have changed the face of the Western world.
In military odds, definately. I have already ventured to say that the odds against the Texan confederates at Sabine were greater than those against the Spartans, making their feat all the more significant.
And though NO battle in the entire war between the states could reasonably be compared in results to a saving point of the western world, Sabine Pass could easily be said to have had a similar effect on the history of the state of Texas itself.