Purchase of theVesta— May 4th, 1855, sailing of the "Immortal Fifty-six" — The American Phalanx — First battle of Rivas — Punishing a desperado — Trouble in Castellon's Cabinet — Battle at Virgin Bay — Death of Castellon.
Walkersubmitted the contract, worded with legal precision, to the civil and military authorities at San Francisco, and was gratified to learn that it in nowise threatened to violate the neutrality laws of the country. General Wool, to whom Walker had surrendered on his return from Sonora, professed himself satisfied; the district attorney of the United States found no flaw; but everybody in San Francisco knew that Walker was about to colonize Nicaragua with filibusters, and smiled at the peaceful fiction. The legal difficulties overcome, there remained the graver question of funds. To add to his embarrassments, Walker fell sick. It was late in April before he had succeeded in getting the few thousand dollars needed to charter and fit out a vessel. Meanwhile General Jerez, commanding the Democratic army at Leon, had made one or two contracts with other Americans, unknown to his superiors. The Granadinos, too, not to be behind their Democratic rivals, had sent Don Guadalupe Saenz to California to drum up recruits for their side. But nothing came of either venture, and the Leonese, now hemmed in their own department by the victorious Legitimists, looked wistfully for the coming of Walker. He at last succeeded in collecting the barely necessary amount of money, and cast about him for a suitable vessel to carry the new Argonauts.
In the shipping intelligence of the day is chronicled amongst the clearances at the San Francisco Custom House, on April 21st, the brigVesta, Captain Briggs, for Realejo, forty-seven passengers. She did not sail, however, though some fifty or sixty passengers had taken their quarters on board. For at the last moment a new obstacle arose. Walker had bought her outright, though she was a slow, unseaworthy craft, some thirty years old, as nothing better offered, and found out, when too late, that she was liable for several debts incurred by the former owners. The sheriff seized her and, for security, had her sails stripped off and stored on shore. New creditors with old claims also appeared, ready to serve other attachments as soon as the first should be dissolved. Everybody who held a claim, real or fictitious, against the luckless craft, hastened to present it, knowing that Walker must pay their demands or incur a delay of tedious litigation, and delay meant death to his hopes. A revenue cutter drew up alongside the brig, ready to prevent a possible attempt at departure. The expeditionists grew restive, but Walker quieted them with the promise of a speedy departure. Seeking out the creditor who had attached the vessel, Walker persuaded him to grant a release on easy terms, but it took his last cent to defray the sheriff's extravagant fees of three hundred dollars. The last charge was paid on the 3rd of May, and Walker was authorized to ask the revenue cutter's aid in having the brig's sails bent on, which was rapidly and noiselessly done at night. But though out of the hands of the Government officers, theVestawas still liable to detention by civil process, and a sheriff's keeper remained on board. The captain fearing to risk illegal steps, a new commander, M. D. Eyre, was hastily engaged. He went on board about midnight, having hired a towboat to carry the brig out to sea, and about the hour of one on the morning of May 4, 1855, the legal functionary was put on board the tow-boat, the lines cast off, and fifty-six filibusters embarked on a voyage of 2,700 miles in a crazy brig bound for a hostile port. A story is told that just before putting to sea, Walker invited the sheriff's officer into the cabin and addressed him briefly as follows: "Here, sir, are wine and cigars; also handcuffs and irons. Please make choice of which you will have. This vessel is going to sea." The officer, according to this rather apocryphal story, was a man of the world, and theVestaput to sea.
Walker breathed more freely as the Golden Gate closed behind him, and the tug-boatResolute, fading to a smoky speck on the water, loosened the last tenacious tentacle of the octopus—law. Harassed like Cortez by petty trials, he was, like him, sailing with a few chosen followers to a new destiny. He confided in the superiority of civilization over barbarism, and the certainty that he would receive his country's support the moment that success should first crown his arms: success which condones even greater faults than illegal warfare. The cost of failure he did not count. The stout-hearted hunter who enters a lion's den does not ask what will happen if nerve or steel fail him confronting his angry foe. Despite the result, there is something thrilling in the story of the fifty-six men who stole out of a harbour by night to conquer an empire—and all but succeeded! For not by armaments nor resources should such enterprises be judged, but by the deeds of the adventurers. As Prescott says, "It is not numbers that give importance to a conflict, but the consequences that depend upon it; the magnitude of the stake, and the skill and courage of the players—the more limited the means, even, the greater may be the science shown in the use of them."
They sailed down the Pacific coast—a long and stormy voyage—and, after touching at Tigre Island for a pilot, cast anchor in the port of Realejo, Nicaragua, on the 16th day of June. Old Realejo, at which theVesta'svoyage ended, was the site of a once prosperous Spanish town with a good harbour and deep tide-water; but so often had the buccaneers ravaged it, that the inhabitants had abandoned it and built a new town of the same name five miles further up the river, accessible only to boats of light draught. The strangers re-embarked in several canoes, orbongoes, hollowed from the ceiba tree, and by four o'clock that day arrived at New Realejo. Castellon and his cabinet were at Leon, the Democratic capital, whither Walker and Major Crocker set out the next day escorted by Colonel Ramirez and Captain Doubleday of the native army. The Provisional Director warmly received his new ally, and promptly and formally accepted the immigrants into the military service of Nicaragua. They were organized as a separate corps, under the name of "La Falange Americana," or American Phalanx, and placed under the immediate command of their own officers. Commissions were issued on the 20th of June to Walker as colonel, Achilles Kewen as lieutenant-colonel, and Timothy Crocker as major. Orders were given them at once to proceed by water to Rivas, in the Meridional department, which was held by the enemy. Colonel Ramirez, with two hundred natives, was detailed to help the Falange, but only half that number answered the roll-call, when theVestaweighed anchor at Realejo, on the 23rd of June.
Walker had seen enough of his new friends to convince him that his ambition had nothing to fear from such rivals. Castellon was an amiable and irresolute gentleman; Munoz was ambitious and vain, but incapable. The native soldiery were ill-trained and fickle-minded. Faction had stifled any faint sparks of patriotism in their breasts. A few hundred of them who bore the proud title ofveteranos, had smelt powder and could face an enemy after a march of forty miles under a tropical sun. They wore a tasteful uniform and carried muskets and knapsacks.
But the hundred recruits of Ramirez were a Falstaffian corps of indolent, good-natured rascals, who devoted all the intervals between skirmishing to gambling and gossip. As their country's proverb hath it, "they would gamble away the sun before sunrise." In striking contrast with those children of nature were the men of California, with iron nerves and dauntless courage, in whose characters vice lost half its evil by losing, if not its grossness, all its meanness; men who "deemed no crime, or curse, or vice as dark as that of cowardice." Their manliness was incapable of treachery, falsehood, or the meaner passions, born of a society in which law, the only remedy for wrong, too easily becomes the strongest shield of the wrong-doer. Having summed up their virtues in the comprehensive ones of courage and loyalty, there is little else to be said in their favour. For themselves they would have asked no higher praise, and strict justice can accord them little beyond.
It was a bold move to attack the enemy in his stronghold. Rivas and the adjoining country are the most densely populated parts of Nicaragua. The city of Rivas contains eleven thousand inhabitants, while the department of that name and the adjacent Oriental department number respectively twenty thousand and ninety-five thousand. Four days after leaving Realejo, the party, to the number of one hundred and sixty-five landed at a point on the coast near the town of Brito, and immediately began a forced march to Rivas. Midnight and a severe rain storm overtook them in the midst of a strange country, but they trudged patiently along, ankle-deep in mud, shielding their precious ammunition from the falling torrents. On the second night of their march the weather proved a useful ally, enabling them to surprise and overpower a picket of the enemy at the village of Tola. Next morning they were rewarded by a first sight of Lake Nicaragua in all its matchless beauty. Walker, who had beheld the glories of Switzerland, Italy, and California, pauses in the recital of his dangerous adventures to note the charms of the earthly paradise upon which he had come to launch the horrors of war. Between him and the lake six hundred Legitimist's troops lay at Rivas, awaiting the attack.
No time was lost in forming the plan of assault. To the Falange was awarded the post of honour, the native command of Ramirez being reserved to support them. Kewen and Crocker led the Americans, who, at the word of command, advanced steadily, receiving the enemy's fire with the coolness of veterans, and reserving their own until it could tell most effectively. Then after pouring in a volley they charged with a yell, and drove the advance guard of the Serviles down the narrow streets to the plaza. A stubborn resistance was made at this point. Crocker was dangerously wounded in two places, his right arm was broken by a musket shot, but he carried his pistol in his left hand and continued to fire it into the faces of the enemy, until a third shot laid him dead. Walker, who had joined his countrymen in the charge, now called for the native reserves to decide the issue; but they were nowhere to be seen. The poltroons had fled at the first shot. The enemy perceived the defection and pressed the abandoned Falange so hard that they were driven for shelter to some adobe huts, behind whose walls they held their own for three hours. It was a losing game with so small a force, for every man slain was equal to thrice the number of enemies added. Achilles Kewen was the next officer to fall. The hardy pioneer, Doubleday, was shot in the head, though not fatally. Seeing six of his men dead, and twice as many wounded, Walker ordered a sortie. The enemy had lost a hundred and fifty in killed and wounded, and General Boscha, their commander, deemed it wiser to offer no opposition to the departure of the Americans. The Serviles, with cowardly ferocity, killed the wounded men who had been left on the plaza, and celebrated their victory by burning the bodies. The ghastly bonfire lit up the city as the weary filibusters halted on their retreat near the Transit road to San Juan del Sur. The following morning they resumed the march to that city, where they arrived about sunset, on June 30th, in a most deplorable plight. Some were hatless, some shoeless, and all exhausted with battle and travel, as they marched into the town. There is a whole epitome of filibustering in the fact that at such a time two recruits were found to join the ranks of the Falange. "The Texan, Harry McLeod, and the Irishman, Peter Burns," deserve mention for this characteristic piece of hardihood.
TheVestawas cruising off the coast, awaiting orders from Walker, who therefore impressed a Costa Rican schooner, theSan Jose,for the purpose of carrying his command to Realejo, defending his action upon the ground that the same vessel had already been used to carry General Guardiola from Honduras to Nicaragua upon a hostile mission, thus forfeiting her neutral rights. The schooner was confiscated a year afterwards, by Walker, for sailing under a false register, and, being converted into a man-of-war and renamed theGranada,played quite an important part in the climax of this tragedy.
In this critical hour of his fortunes, Walker's firmness was put to a severe test. A couple of dissolute Americans, who had been living for some time at San Juan, either through drunken folly or private spite, or for the purpose of plunder, set fire to the barracks on shore, for a time placing the whole town in danger of destruction. Walker, foreseeing that the act would be at once attributed to his men, took measures to punish the offenders. One of them escaped from the party detailed to execute him. The other, a gambler named Dewey, took refuge in the hold of a small boat attached to the stern of theSan Jose. The desperado was well armed, and any attempt to capture him would have proved fatal to one or more of his assailants. So all the night Walker and a guard of men kept watch over the boat, ready to shoot or seize the villain if he tried to escape. At daybreak the schooner put to sea, towing astern the boat in which Dewey lay sheltered behind a poor native woman, his wretched mistress. The gambler, as everybody on board knew, was a dead shot, while his guard lay under the disadvantage of fearing to injure the woman if they fired. At last he rose to cut the boat's painter, and at that moment a rifle ball ended his career. The poor woman was wounded also, but not mortally. Walker takes pains to recount minutely the details of this incident, in order to vindicate the character of his followers. So severe a punishment was not lost upon those of his men who might be inclined to take a baser view of filibusterism than their leader did.
On the same day they met theVestaat sea, and embarking on board the old brig, arrived at Realejo on July 1st. Walker was justly incensed at the defection of his native allies at Rivas, and positively refused to continue in the Democratic service without better guarantees of support on emergency than the jealousy of the native commanders seemed likely to allow. The Falange remained several days at Leon, where the firmness of their leader alone averted a collision between them and the troops of Munoz, who had set the example of hostility and distrust towards the new-comers. At last, finding the Cabinet unable to agree upon a fixed policy (though a modified contract had been drawn up, by the terms of which the Falange were to be enlisted in the army of Nicaragua to the number of three hundred, and receive one hundred dollars a month per man, and five hundred acres of land each at the close of the war), Walker withdrew his men from Leon to Realejo. There he embarked them on theVesta,with the pretended purpose of departing for Honduras, and entering the service of President Cabañas. Nothing however, was farther from his intention. The Meridional department, commanding the Transit route, was the point at whose acquisition he steadily aimed. To maintain his foothold in Nicaragua he well knew he must keep open his communication with the United States and the recruits who were sure to flock thence to his standard.
Castellon was perplexed, fearing equally to part with his valuable allies and to displease Munoz by retaining them. The fortune of war decided the question. The Legitimists under Corral and His Hondureño ally, Guardiola, were drawing close to Leon. Santos Guardiola (his name is still muttered with a curse throughout the length and breadth of the isthmus) was a native of Honduras, who joined the Guatemalan enemies of his country, and, by his unparalleled cruelties to young and old, men and women alike, acquired the dread name of "The Tiger of Honduras." He was sprung from the stock which produces nine-tenths of the murderers and thieves of Central America, the offspring of Indo-African amalgamation known as "Sambos."
A deadlier foe, the cholera, was also beginning to ravage the Democratic department. To meet Corral and his forces, Munoz went forth with six hundred men, and a sharp engagement occurred at Sauce, in which the enemy was repulsed, but Munoz was slain. The loss of that commander influenced Castellon more than the temporary victory, and he continued to beg Walker to return. But Walker had already secured the co-operation of an influential partisan, Don Jose Maria Valle, who readily enlisted a hundred and sixty men for the enterprise against the Meridional department, and, with the easy loyalty of his nation, proposed that Walker should pronounce against Castellon and set up an independent government. Walker was honourable enough to reject the ungrateful suggestion, although he did not hesitate to disobey the Provisional Director's commands when they crossed his own policy. Accordingly, on the 23rd of August theVestasailed once more for the Meridional department, and arrived at San Juan del Sur on the 29th. The Legitimists fled at his approach. While the Americans were there the steamer from San Francisco arrived and departed, carrying back with her, as a recruiting agent, the afterwards notorious Parker H. French.
After a stay of four days Walker set out for Rivas, where Guardiola and six hundred Serviles lay waiting to regain the laurels lost at Sauce. The Americans, after a few hours' march, halted for breakfast at Virgin Bay, on the lake, and were at once attacked by Guardiola's whole command who had made a forced march towards San Juan, and then, doubling, followed the Americans to Virgin Bay. Attacked on front and flank, Walker made a good disposition of his little force. Previous experience had taught him that no superiority of discipline, skill, and courage sufficed to counterbalance the numerical odds of eight to one on an open field. He was now to try the effect of pitting the same against a proportion of only five to one, with the ground in his favour. The Falange, as usual, bore the brunt of battle; but the natives, being better officered than before, fought well. Guardiola was driven back at every point, notwithstanding that his men showed desperate courage. But no courage could withstand the deadly marksmanship of the Americans, who, with rifle or revolver, always engaged at close quarters and never wasted a shot. The combat, which hardly deserves the name of a battle, lasted only two hours; sufficiently long to inflict on the enemy a loss of sixty killed and a hundred wounded. At its conclusion Guardiola withdrew his demoralized forces and fled to Rivas. Walker, Doubleday, and a few others were wounded, but none of the Americans, and but three of their native allies, were killed.
Walker now returned to San Juan, where he picked up a few recruits from among the ranks of homeward-bound Americans on the steamer from California. Here also he learned of the death of Castellon, who had fallen a victim to the cholera. His successor, Don Nasario Escoto, warmly congratulated Walker on his success at Virgin Bay, and promised further aid. Learning from intercepted letters of the authorities at Granada that the city was in an almost defenceless condition, he determined to attack the Legitimist stronghold without awaiting the advance of Corral, who had replaced Guardiola in the command of the enemy. To show his contempt of the latter, he sent the intercepted correspondence to the Legitimist headquarters, and was not a little surprised at receiving a polite acknowledgement of the courtesy, and a hieroglyphic document from Corral, which proved to consist of Masonic signs. A freemason in the Falange, De Brissot, interpreted them to mean an overture for confidential negotiations. No reply was made to the proposition.
Recruits continued to flock to the Democratic standard. Colonel Charles Gilman, a one-legged veteran of Sonora, came down with thirty-five men from California. The native allies now numbered about two hundred and fifty. Two small cannon were procured and mounted. By the 11th of October Walker had everything in readiness for his most audacious stroke, the capture of Granada, a city as dear to the Legitimist cause, and especially to its proud inhabitants, as was its namesake to the Moors of old Spain.
Corral was massing his forces at Rivas, hoping, yet fearing, to meet his enemy on the Transit road. No suspicion of an attack on the capital seems to have entered his mind. Dissension was rife in the Legitimist camp, Guardiola and Corral quarrelling for the supreme command. The native Democrats on the other side, whatever of jealousy they may have felt towards their foreign allies, carefully veiled their feelings and made a show of the utmost cordiality. Walker enforced absolute discipline without distinction of nationality, a spice of grim humour sometimes seasoning his decisions. Two native officers, having quarrelled all night over some old or new feud, were ordered to settle the affair by going out and fighting a duel next morning, but their courage had oozed away by daybreak, and the trouble was heard of no more.
At last, on the morning of October 11th, the Democratic army, about four hundred strong, took the line of march over the white Transit road to Virgin Bay. The Falange were in good spirits as they marched gaily along the dusty highway. They were nearly all in the prime of life—tall, robust, and spirited. Their only distinctive uniform, if it might be called such, was the red ribbon which they wore tied around their black "slouch" hats. They wore blue or red woollen shirts, coarse trousers tucked into heavy boots, with a revolver and a bowie knife in each belt, and a precious rifle on every man's shoulder. Many new faces were in the ranks, and some old ones were missing which could ill be spared from a service of trust and danger. Ten of the original fifty-six had fallen in battle—Kewen, a brave veteran of Mexico and Cuba, Crocker, McIndoe, Cotham, Bailey, Hews, Wilson, William and Frank Cole, and Estabrook. Some were absent on leave, amongst them the pioneer, Doubleday, who had returned home piqued by an untimely rebuke from his commander. The estrangement did not last long. Doubleday soon wearied of a peaceful life, and was welcomed back by Walker on his return to active service.
A Servile victory in the North — Walker in the enemy's stronghold — Negotiations for peace — Execution of Mayorga — Rivas chosen Provisional Director — Corral's treason and punishment — Newspaper history.
Corrallay with the main body of the Legitimist army at Rivas, keeping, through his scouts and spies, a close watch on the movements of his enemy. One of those spies, having been caught within the Democratic lines, was tried by court-martial and summarily shot. Corral fancied that he had his foes in a trap, and he accordingly devoted all his efforts to prevent their retreat to San Juan, as well as to cut off reinforcements from California. Matters, indeed, looked desperate with the Democrats. On the North the Leonese had just been routed in battle by General Martinez at Pueblo Nuevo, and the victor had only halted for a time at Granada to receive a triumphal ovation before coming down to Rivas to join in the extermination of the filibusters.
It had been a gala day in the city of Granada. From early dawn to midnight her ten thousand citizens filled the streets and plazas with revelry and congratulations. Salvos of artillery thundered a welcome to the victors, joy bells rang all day, andbombasand rockets wasted precious powder in their honour.Aguardienteflowed freely as water, until the valiant soldiers prayed that Walker might be spared destruction long enough to meet the heroes of Pueblo Nuevo. Far into the night lasted the grand fiesta, till the last drunken reveller had hied him home or lain down in the street to dream of renewed happiness on the morrow. The tardiest lover had tinkled his farewell on the guitar. In the grand plaza the guard nodded around the watch fire, while from distant pickets came at intervals the long-drawn nasal "Alerte!" of the sentinels. It was a melodious cry, equally unlike the sharp challenge of the Frenchman or the stern English monosyllables.
Granada slept, the while a little steamer, with lights cloaked and furnaces hidden, steamed slowly along the shore. Not a sound broke the stillness of the lake, save the lap of surf or the plash of the startled saurian. The jaguar prowling among the orange trees on the shore challenged the unfamiliar noise, and the night birds passed along the cry of warning which was lost upon the ears of the sleepy sentinels. They drowsed over their waning fires until the gray of morning broke on the mountains, and from convent and church tower the joy-bells renewed the merry peals. Here and there a straggling sentry discharged his piece in response. Another and another shot were heard; then, suddenly, a short, sharp volley such as never came from the mouth of smooth-bore musket. The joy-bells changed to a loud alarm as a terrified sentinel rushed in from the South suburb, crying, "The enemy are on us! the Filibusteros!" Close upon his heels came the broken and demoralized picket, with the advance guard of Americans under Walker and Valle galloping on their track.
The surprised garrison, after the first panic, rallied and made a short stand on the plaza, until an impetuous charge of the invaders swept them away. In less time than has been taken to tell it one hundred and ten filibusters had carried by assault the city of Granada, without losing a man—literally, for a drummer-boy was the only victim on their side.
The surprise was complete, and the consequence of supreme importance to Walker, who, from the chief city of the Servile party, might dictate terms to Central America. Corral had been completely outgeneralled, nobody but Walker himself and his trusted aids, Valle and Hornsby, having been acquainted with the object of the expedition when it set out from Virgin Bay.
Walker, as soon as he had organized a provisional government and convinced his native allies by vigorous measures that the conquered city was not to be subjected to the usual treatment of plunder and violence, sent a delegation to negotiate with Corral. The envoys were met with a polite negative, while the United States minister, Mr. Wheeler, who had accompanied them in the character of a peacemaker, was thrown into prison and threatened with other punishments, whence ensued much diplomatic correspondence and official shedding of ink.
Meanwhile the hope of a peaceable understanding was seriously jeopardized by the folly of Walker's recruiting agent, Parker H. French. He had come to San Juan with a body of new men from California, and after crossing the Transit had seized one of the lake steamers, with the intention of capturing Fort San Carlos, at the head of the San Juan River, the same stronghold which in its days of power had been the key to the Transit route and to lake navigation. French was easily repulsed, and made his way to Granada to report his misadventures. Tidings of his deeds reaching Rivas in the meantime, some Legitimist soldiers, by way of reprisal, attacked and killed six or seven Californian passengers who were awaiting at Virgin Bay a chance of passage to the Atlantic coast. Shortly afterwards the commandant of Fort San Carlos fired into a westward-bound steamer, killing some passengers who were as innocent of complicity with French or the filibusters as had been the other victims at Virgin Bay. The protest of the American minister being treated with contempt, Walker, with questionable justice, retaliated by ordering a court-martial on the Legitimist Secretary of State, Don Mateo Mayorga, who had been captured at the taking of Granada. Such a method of holding a cabinet minister responsible for the acts of his government was enforcing the principles of constitutional rule with a vengeance. The court was composed of the secretary's countrymen, who brought in a verdict of guilty, and Mayorga was promptly executed. Although personally refraining from interfering in the case, and only reluctantly sanctioning the sentence of death, it is evident that Walker had begun to learn the Central American method of conducting warfare. But the execution, if morally unjustified, proved to be a wise act politically. Corral at once agreed to treat for peace, and a meeting between him and Walker was arranged to take place at Granada on the 23rd of October.
Again the bells of Granada rang out in joy, and the light-hearted populace welcomed the festival whether of peace or of war. The Falange, now some tenscore strong, joined with the native soldiery in a military welcome to their late enemies.
At the approach of Corral, Walker, attended by his staff, rode out of the suburbs to meet him. The commanders saluted each other with grave cordiality, and re-entered the city side by side, proceeding to the grand cathedral, where Padre Vijil, the curate of Granada, offered up a High Mass, andTe Deumsof thanksgiving were sung. Nor did the good father fail in his sermon to show the advantages to his beloved country attending the presence of the strange American of the North.
Handsome Corral was the darling of the Granadinos. He had the superficial traits which draw popularity—dash, openhandedness, physical beauty, and a sunny disposition; but he was weak, vain, and untrustworthy, for all that. We have seen how he coquetted with Walker while in command of the Legitimist forces, treating for peace and imprisoning its envoys. Having come to Granada to complete the negotiations, he now betrayed the rights of his principal, the President, so called, Estrada, and entered into a sacred compact with the Leonese, whose acts were sanctioned by their nominal President.
By the terms of the agreement Don Patricio Rivas was appointed Presidentpro tempore, with the following cabinet: Maximo Jerez, Minister of Relations; Firmin Ferrer, Minister of Public Credit; Parker H. French, Minister of Hacienda; Ponciano Corral, Minister of War. Walker was appointed generalissimo of the army, which consisted of twelve hundred men, distributed throughout the country in small garrisons. Five hundred men were stationed at Leon and the remainder at Virgin Bay, Granada, Rivas, and other fortified positions. The general in chief received a salary of five hundred dollars a month, and his subordinates were awarded correspondingly liberal pay, or promises to pay. There were seven surgeons and two chaplains attached to the forces; the former held no sinecure.
During the progress of the negotiations Corral, with the small subtlety of miniature politics, had sought to entrap Walker in various ways, such as requiring him to take the oath upon the Crucifix, and similar ceremonial punctilioes, to which Walker, as a Protestant, might have been expected to object, but, like a man of sense, did not. He rightly judged that the keeping of an oath was of more importance than the form of taking it; and therein he differed from Corral, who was detected, a few days after the formation of the government, in treasonable correspondence with the neighbouring states. A native courier deceived the traitor, and placed in Walker's hands the fatal letters containing indisputable proofs of the writer's guilt.
To Xatruch, a Legitimist refugee, he had written, nine days after the signing of the treaty, begging him to foment hostility against the new administration. In a similar strain he wrote to Guardiola, the Honduran Servile leader, conjuring him to arouse the Legitimist element everywhere against the American intruders: "Nicaragua is lost, lost are Honduras, San Salvador, and Guatemala if they let this thing prevail. Let them come quickly, if they would meet auxiliaries." General Martinez, commanding at Managua, was also implicated in the treason, but received warning in time to fly the country.
Walker at once requested the President and Cabinet to meet him, and laid before them the evidence of Corral's guilt. A court-martial was convened, the members of which were all Americans, such, it is said, being the wish of the accused, who knew that he could expect no mercy from his countrymen. From the same motive, he did not deny his guilt, but threw himself on the mercy of his judges, relying, as it proved, over-much on the magnanimity which the Americans had heretofore displayed. He was sentenced to die by the fusillade at noon of the next day, November the 7th. The time of execution was subsequently postponed two hours. The friends of the condemned made earnest appeals for mercy in his behalf, being seconded by the leading public citizens, and particularly by Padre Vijil, the gentle apostle of peace; but Walker, though much moved and fully aware of the odious construction which his enemies would put upon the act, firmly refused the petition. The treason was too flagrant, the example unfortunately too necessary, and mercy to such a traitor would have been injustice to every loyal man in the state.
Corral died at the appointed hour, and the lesson was not wholly lost upon his accomplices. Walker has been bitterly censured for this piece of stern justice, especially at home in the United States, where the act was misrepresented as that of a suspicious tyrant who thus rid himself of a dangerous rival. But there is not the slightest reason for regarding Corral's death as aught but the well-merited punishment of an utterly unscrupulous villain. His whole conduct in connection with the late war was consistent with his last and fatal treachery. Even the morality of Nicaragua, loose as it was in matters of public faith, while lamenting the fate of Handsome Ponciano, confessed that he was well-named "Corral," the beautiful but deadly serpent of the country.
That impartial justice governed the action of Walker is evident from an incident which occurred on the very day on which Corral was inditing his treason to Xatruch and Guardiola. Patrick Jordan, a soldier of the Falange, while intoxicated, shot and mortally wounded a native boy. Jordan was tried by court-martial and sentenced to death. Padre Vijil and many others, including the mother of the murdered boy, begged in vain for leniency to the culprit. On the 3rd of November, two days after the commission of his crime, Jordan was shot at sunrise. Walker's detractors commented characteristically upon this execution, picturing the impartial judge as another Mokanna, delighting in the suffering of friend as of foe. The historian, groping in the darkness of contemporaneous journalism for facts of current history, wherever those facts bear upon the so-called political issues of the time, finds himself floundering at every step in sloughs of falsehoods or quicksands of misrepresentation. The evil, unhappily, is confined to no party or epoch. Walker being a champion, and a bigoted one, of a certain party, paid the inevitable penalty, that of being equally over-praised and underrated, according to the political prejudices of his critics.
To Don Buenaventura Selva was given the vacant portfolio of war. The representative of the United States recognized the new administration. The neighbouring states of Liberal tendencies sent assurances of hearty friendship; those in which the Servile party was supreme maintained a diplomatic silence. Peace reigned throughout the length and breadth of Nicaragua, the peace of her own slumbering volcanoes.
Filibusterism abroad — Kinney's Expedition — The Filibusters and their allies — An aristocracy of leather — Pierce and Marcy — A rupture with the United States — Costa Rica declares war — Schlessinger's fiasco — Cosmopolitan adventurers — Steamers withdrawn — History of the Transit Company — Vanderbilt plans vengeance — The printing-press on the field.
Inthe United States, particularly in California, Walker's amazing success gave an impulse to filibustering of a different, because more sanguine, nature from that produced by the first expeditions of Lopez to Cuba. France and England also awoke to behold with dismay this solution of the Central American problem. Not less alarmed was the Conservative element in Spanish America, the more reactionary part of which talked wildly of calling in a European protectorate and of breaking off commercial intercourse with the North Americans. Mexico, Cuba, Ecuador, and Central America were threatened by invading expeditions, while Nicaragua was made the objective point of an actual invasion from the Atlantic coast. It will be remembered that the Mosquito king's grant to the Shepards had been transferred to a colonization company in the United States; upon the strength of which Henry L. Kinney, of Philadelphia, proceeded to occupy his property. But there were many difficulties in the way. The grant had been revoked by his Majesty in a lucid interval. Great Britain, as guardian of the kingdom, repudiated the contract. Nicaragua steadily declined to recognize the rights of either party to her territory; and, to complete the adventurer's misfortune, the Federal authorities arrested him when about to lead his first detachment of colonists to his tropical possessions. Not to rehearse the tedious litigation which followed, it suffices to say that the Kinney Expedition, having succeeded in embarking, was shortly afterwards wrecked on Turk's Island, finally reaching San Juan del Norte in a most forlorn plight. There new misfortunes overtook them. Most of the military colonists sailed up the river to share the more promising fortunes of Walker, to whom Kinney himself, despairing of success unaided, at last made overtures for an alliance offensive and defensive. But the messenger found Walker firmly entrenched in power and, as a member of the government, bound to consider all foreign claims on the Mosquito coast as mere usurpations. Had it been otherwise, he might perhaps have returned a less peremptory answer than the brief threat: "Tell Mr. Kinney, or Colonel Kinney, or whatever he calls himself, that if I find him on Nicaraguan soil, I will most assuredly hang him." The new element in Nicaragua did not fail to uphold the sovereign independence of the country with zeal, even if it may have sometimes lacked discretion. Walker was a stickler for dignity, and never failed to exact the respect due to himself, his office, and his flag. An English merchant, of Realejo, who had resisted a Government levy, and, with the sublime assurance of his race, had hoisted the Union Jack over his house, was caustically invited by Walker to lower the emblem or produce his Government's license to display the flag of a representative. "If he refuses," said Walker, "tear it down, trample it under foot, and put the fellow in irons." The Englishman knew enough of law to see that he had no authority for the display of bunting, which he accordingly furled, paid the requisition, and cursed the Yankee lawyer who had taught him a lesson. Walker was versed in the law of nations, but he unfortunately overlooked the fact that those wise statutes are framed for the control of strong nations dealing with their peers. It is not enough to be right, or to know one's rights, unless the power to maintain them accompany the knowledge. A touch of the lawyer's weakness for technical rights always marked this curious outlaw.
In the dazzling success of the Falange, the disasters of Kinney were forgotten, and many a band of hardy adventurers was tempted to rival their deeds. For a time it seemed as though the spirit of the Vikings had been revived in the land discovered by Eric the Red. On the Pacific coast those incursions sometimes assumed, as we have seen, formidable proportions. Sonora, Arizona, Lower California, and even the Sandwich Islands, were the various goals of ambitious adventurers, some of whom never carried their schemes into effect; others, like Colonel Crabbe, made a really imposing campaign for a brief space, only to die fruitless deaths.
The filibusters were by no means impelled to risk life and liberty through an abstract love of freedom or disinterested affection for their oppressed allies. They were, on the contrary, rather prone to turn to their own advantage the fruits of hard-won victory. Their extenuation lies in the worthless character of their allies, who invariably deserted them in extremity, and left the foreigner to save himself. It was so in Cuba, in Sonora, in Nicaragua, though there were honourable exceptions everywhere. A contempt and mistrust of the native character, often but ill-concealed, did not serve to make the alliance any more sincere. In Nicaragua, for the present at least, gratitude was stronger than prejudice, and the party favouring the Americans was powerful and enthusiastic. The common people remained faithful throughout; it was thecalzados, the middle and upper classes composing the Conservative party, who hated the foreigner because they felt his superiority, and his still more galling consciousness thereof. Thecalzadoswere those who wore shoes, as distinguished from the barefoot rabble. Aristocracy, based on such transcendent merit, is naturally jealous of its prerogatives.
Almost every steamer from California brought down a squad, greater or less, of recruits. Amongst the earliest was a brother of the Achilles Kewen killed at the first battle of Rivas. E. J. C. Kewen was one of the most valuable of Walker's staff, on which he served throughout the war. Quite characteristic of the time and place is the matter-of-fact way in which the San Francisco papers state that Colonel Kewen participated as second in a duel at that place on the day preceding his departure for Nicaragua. Business before pleasure.
During the four months which followed the formation of the new government, Walker gathered about him a force of Americans and other foreigners numbering twelve hundred. They came from all parts of the Union, but chiefly from the Southern and Pacific states. Recruiting offices were opened in San Francisco, whose agents penetrated the mining camps and interior towns, unnoticed or unhindered by the Government authorities. Whenever any opposition was offered, the volunteers frequently bought through tickets to New York, and stopped at Nicaragua to enjoy a little filibustering. In the east more stringent precautions were taken by the authorities, though without much effect, as the colonists were responding to the invitation of the Nicaraguan Government, and could not be legally hindered.
Among the adventurers were many idle and desperate characters attracted by visions of beauty and booty, with the broad license of a freebooter's camp. To such the reality proved a terrible revelation; they found, instead of a free lance's easy discipline, a system of military government emulating in its stringent laws that of the great Frederick. Walker's abstemiousness was supplemented by the virtue, much rarer in men of his class, of absolute personal chastity in thought, word, and deed. Drunkenness, debauchery, and profanity were vices which he abhorred. The man who was detected selling liquor to a soldier was punished by a fine of 250 dollars; the drunkard was sent to the guard-house for ten days. With whisky of a vile quality selling at two dollars and a half a bottle, and the terrors of punishment before the eyes of both buyer and seller, drunkenness was rare in Granada. On the outposts discipline was more lax, officers and men availing themselves of secrecy to evade their general's stern commands. The well-behaved, on the other hand, were treated with the greatest favour, receiving their regular pay of a hundred dollars a month, according to some—a quarter of that sum, according to others—and a contingent title to five hundred acres of land.
The assurance of peace alone was needed to make Nicaragua, the veritable "Mahomet's Paradise" which its discoverers had named it. But there was no such assurance or prospect in view. Even had Walker been willing to rest content with his present wonderful success, he would not have been permitted so to curb his ambition. His enemies were too many and too powerful and implacable. Great Britain, which had been trespassing, secretly or openly, for half a century, on the rights of the weak Spanish-American republics, could not allow so rich a prize to pass into the hands of the hated "Yankee." Money, men, and arms were furnished to the neighbouring states, and every pretext was made use of to stir up a crusade against the Americans.
Enemies as bitter, though less powerful to injure openly, influenced the administration at Washington. The Secretary of State, William L. Marcy, was a politician who is best remembered by his enunciation of the notorious political maxim, "To the victors belong the spoils." Marcy had no personal ill-will towards Walker or his political friends; he was not the man to indulge a wanton grudge, but he carried into the great office which he filled the aims, sympathies, prejudices, and alliances of a thorough politician. To him the traditions of his country, the dignity of his high position, the honour of the republic were secondary ideas. What his party would say, how his acts would be criticized at Albany or on Wall Street, these were the thoughts which swayed his mind and governed his conduct. Like master, like man, Franklin Pierce was mentally as small as his secretary. So when a minister plenipotentiary from Nicaragua presented his credentials at Washington, and the other resident ministers protested against his being received, a terrible consternation fell upon the minds of President and Secretary. Mr. Marcolletta, the former minister, though recalled by the Government of Nicaragua, stoutly refused to resign. The other foreign ministers espoused his cause, and the secretary had the amazing stupidity to argue the case gravely with those officious gentlemen. Colonel Wheeler, the minister to Nicaragua, being appealed to, confirmed thede factoandde jureclaims of the Rivas Government, adding, as a proof of the country's tranquillity, the striking fact, that "not a single prisoner, for any offence, is now confined in the Republic—a circumstance unknown before in the country."
Mr. Marcy had now no choice but to acknowledge the credentials of the new representative, when the discovery of a grave blunder of Walker's saved him the humiliation. No official objection could be urged against the minister, but unfortunately for him, there were pronounced personal objections strong enough to warrant the district attorney of New York in ordering his arrest on a criminal process. The individual, Parker H. French, was the same one-armed hero whose fiasco before Fort San Carlos had brought the Falange into disrepute and provoked the Virgin Bay massacre. Walker discovered when too late the unworthy antecedents of his envoy, whose conduct in Nicaragua should have been enough to disqualify him; but regarding his arrest as a violation of diplomatic privilege, he had him recalled, dismissed the American minister to Nicaragua, and suspended diplomatic intercourse with the United States. Some months later, and after the United States had declined to receive a second minister, Don Firmin Ferrer, Walker sent a third representative, in the person of the good Padre Vijil, who proved acceptable at Washington, as much on account of his high character as for the news which he brought with him, that Walker had routed his Costa Rica enemies, and frightened back the Serviles of the North. Franklin Pierce was not the man to turn his back upon a friend in prosperity, though his good will was not shared by Mr. Marcy. The Nicaraguan minister was received in form, but met with such studied discourtesy from the Secretary of State and his underlings that the cultured and amiable gentleman was glad to return, after a brief sojourn, to the better-mannered society of Nicaragua.
But the fickle conduct of President Pierce and his cabinet had exposed the weak joint in Walker's armour to his quick-eyed enemies in Central America and in Europe. The filibuster, so far from having the support of his native country, was apparently without a friend there. English consuls and men-of-war captains saw that they might crush out with impunity this adventurer and restore the supremacy of European influence on the isthmus. All the Servile partisans in the neighbouring states and the disaffected Legitimists of Nicaragua united to expel the foreign element. The Costa Rican consul-general in London wrote to his President, Don Juan Rafael Mora, in a letter which fell into Walker's hands, that the British Government would sell to Costa Rica two thousand army muskets, at a nominal price, for the purpose of "kicking Walker and his associates out of Nicaragua." British friendship was not purely disinterested nor did it proceed solely from hatred of Americans. Seventeen million dollars invested by English capitalists in Costa Rican bonds were the substantial basis of that interest. It is painful to reflect upon the fact that those bonds were afterwards defaulted to the last dollar.
A deputation sent from Nicaragua to negotiate a treaty of peace with Costa Rica was ignominiously expelled the latter country. Guatemala, San Salvador, and Honduras also declined to recognize the new administration.
On the 26th of February, 1856, Costa Rica declared war against Nicaragua, for the expressed purpose of driving the foreign invaders from the soil of Central America. Distant Peru sympathized with the crusaders by advancing a loan of $150,000 to aid the righteous campaign. President Mora at once collected a force of nine thousand men, and prepared to march on Guanacaste. A counter declaration of war was immediately issued by President Rivas. Walker, as general-in-chief, summoned his men to meet him on the plaza of Granada, and, having had the proclamation of hostilities read to them, made a stirring address, concluding with a peroration well suited to his hearers: "We have sent them the olive branch; they have sent us back the knife. Be it so. We shall give them war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt."
Unfortunately the officer chosen to lead the advance on Costa Rica proved to be a knife more dangerous to the hand which held than to the breast before it. Colonel Louis Schlessinger was given the command, partly by way of compensation for the ill-treatment which he had received from the Costa Ricans when he went thither as one of the peace commissioners. Another of the commissioners named Arguello had deserted to the enemy. The third, Captain W. A. Sutter, son of the famous discoverer of gold in California, alone showed himself possessed of ability and honesty. Walker was not happy in his choice of civil officers, but it must be remembered that the supply of such material was limited. Heaven-inspired statesmen do not flock to the support of a cause so dangerous and unpromising as his.
If Schlessinger was a poor diplomat, he was a worse soldier. Starting with a force of two hundred men, he crossed the border of Guanacaste on the 19th of March. Five companies, of forty men each, had been divided, according to their nationalities or origin, into a French company, under Captain Legaye, a German under Prange, a New Orleans under Thorpe, a New York under Creighton, and a Californian under Rudler. The American companies comprised men of every English-speaking nation, "blown from the four parts of the earth." This division, which a skilful commander might have turned to account by exciting a generous rivalry, was but a source of weakness in the hands of the incapable Schlessinger, himself a foreigner and little popular with his men.
Their first and only engagement occurred at the Hacienda of Santa Rosa, twelve miles within the boundary of Guanacaste. Schlessinger allowed himself to be surprised, the enemy under a skilful officer, the Prussian Baron von Bulow, attacking him with a force of five hundred regulars, and winning an easy victory. Schlessinger did not even make a show of resistance, but ran away at the first shot, followed by the German and French companies. Captain Rudler and Major O'Neill made a brave stand with the New York and California companies, until some fifty of their command were killed, when the survivors made the best of their way off the field and across the border. Only a poor drummer-boy remained beating his drum with childish glee until shot down at his post. The wounded and the prisoners were all put to death by order of President Mora, who had proclaimed no quarter to every filibuster taken in arms. So ended the battle of Santa Rosa, on the 20th of March.
Schlessinger was court-martialed on his return, found guilty of cowardice, and sentenced to death, but he escaped punishment by breaking his parole during the trial and fleeing to Costa Rica. More than twenty years afterwards he reappears in the courts of that country, claiming reward for the service rendered the state on the occasion just narrated.
The heterogeneous character of the filibusters, even at this early date, may be seen from a list of the prisoners butchered after the battle of Santa Rosa, of whom six were natives of the United States, three of Ireland, three of Germany, one of Italy, one of Corfu, one of Samos, one of France, two of Prussia, and one of Panama.
So unexpected was the rout that the victors, fearing a ruse, did not pursue their advantage. The demoralized fugitives returned in straggling parties, some without arms, some in rags, and all crest-fallen and disgraced. To cover their shame they exaggerated the numbers and prowess of the enemy, who, indeed, had behaved with great skill and courage, proving a formidable foe when well led.
For some days a panic prevailed in the Democratic headquarters. Matters were in a critical condition. The Legitimists in the State, always secretly disaffected, hastened to spread the news of the defeat among their friends in the North. Honduras and the neighbouring republics grew firmer in their refusal to recognize the Rivas Government, and Guardiola began to mass his savage troops on the border of Leon. The demoralization spread among the Americans themselves. Faint-hearted officers, erstwhile thirsting for glory, suddenly began to long for a return home, and to send in applications for furlough. Walker lay tossing on a bed of fever, the while his enemies conspired against him and fair-weather friends deserted him. But he had many a stout heart among his trusty veterans, men who welcomed danger as a gambler courts his risks, and who bade good-bye to their shrinking comrades with a fine scorn worthy of Pizarro's old lieutenant, Carvajal, who sang: