Westward pressed the little troop of pioneers, across the sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah. Copyright, 1906, by P.F. Collier & Son.Westward pressed the little troop of pioneers, across the sun-baked lava beds of southwestern Utah.Copyright, 1906, by P.F. Collier & Son.
"It is, indeed, a white man's country," said Smith prophetically, as, leaning on his long rifle, he gazed upon the wonderful panorama which unrolled itself before him. "Though it is Mexican just now, sooner or later it must and shall be ours."
Heartened by the sight of this wonderful new country, and by the knowledge that they must be approaching some of the Mexican settlements, but with bodies sadly weakened from exposure, hunger, and exhaustion, the Americans slowly made their way down the slope, crossed those fertilelowlands which are now covered with groves of orange and lemon, and so, guided by some friendly Indians whom they met, came at last to the mission station of San Gabriel, one of that remarkable chain of outposts of the church founded by the indefatigable Franciscan, Father Junipero Serra. The little company of worn and weary men sighted the red-tiled roof of the mission just at sunset, and though Smith and his followers came from stern New England stock which prided itself on having no truck with Papists, I rather imagine that as the sweet, clear mission bells chimed out the angelus they lifted their hats and stood with bowed heads in silent thanksgiving for their preservation.
I doubt if there was a more astonished community between the oceans than was the monastic one of San Gabriel when this band of ragged strangers suddenly appeared from nowhere and asked for food and shelter.
"You come from the South—from Mexico?" queried the father superior, staring, half-awed, at these gaunt, fierce-faced, bearded men who spoke in a strange tongue.
"No, padre," answered Smith, calling to his aid the broken Spanish he had picked up in his trading expeditions to Santa Fé, "we come from the East,from the country beyond the great mountains, from the United States. We are Americans," he added a little proudly.
"They say they come from the East," the brown-robed monks whispered to each other. "It is impossible. No one has ever come from that direction. Have not the Indians told us many times that there is no food, no water in that direction, and that, moreover, there is no way to cross the mountains? It is, indeed, a strange and incredible tale that these men tell. But we will offer them our hospitality in the name of the blessed St. Francis, for that we withhold from no man; but it is the part of wisdom to despatch a messenger to San Diego to acquaint the governor of their coming, for it may well be that they mean no good to the people of this land."
Had the good monks been able to look forward a few-score years, perhaps they would not have been so ready to offer Smith and his companions the shelter of the mission roof. But how were they to know that these ragged strangers, begging for food at their mission door, were the skirmishers for a mighty host which would one day pour over those mountain ranges to the eastward as the water pours over the falls at Niagara; that within rifle-shot of where their mission stood a city ofhalf a million souls would spread itself across the hills; that down the dusty Camino Real, which the founder of their mission had trudged so often in his sandals and woollen robe, would whirl strange horseless, panting vehicles, putting a mile a minute behind their flying wheels; that twin lines of steel would bring their southernmost station at San Diego within twenty hours, instead of twenty days, of their northernmost outpost at Sonoma; and that over this new land would fly, not the red-white-and-green standard of Mexico, but an alien banner of stripes and stars?
The four years which intervened between the collapse of Spanish rule in Mexico and the arrival of Jedediah Smith at San Gabriel were marked by political chaos in the Californias. When a governor of Alta California rose in the morning he did not know whether he was the representative of an emperor, a king, a president, or a dictator. As a result of these perennial disorders, the Mexican officials ascribed sinister motives to the most innocent episodes. No sooner, therefore, did Governor Echeandia learn of the arrival in his province of a mysterious party of Americans than he ordered them brought under escort to San Diego for examination. Though those present probably did not appreciate it, the meeting ofSmith and Echeandia in the palace at San Diego was a peculiarly significant one. There sat at his ease in his great chair of state the saturnine Mexican governor, arrogant and haughty, beruffled and gold-laced, his high-crowned sombrero and his velvet jacket heavy with bullion, while in front of him stood the American frontiersman, gaunt, unshaven, and ragged, but as cool and self-possessed as though he was at the head of a conquering army instead of a forlorn hope. The one was as truly the representative of a passing as the other was of a coming race. Small wonder that Echeandia, as he observed the hardy figures and determined faces of the Americans, thought to himself how small would be Mexico's chance of holding California if others of their countrymen began to follow in their footsteps. He and his officials cross-examined Smith as closely as though the frontiersman was a prisoner on trial for his life, as, in a sense, he was, for almost any fate might befall him and his companions in that remote corner of the continent without any one being called to account for it. Smith described the series of misfortunes which had led him to cross the ranges; he asserted that he desired nothing so much as to get back into American territory again, and he earnestly begged the governor to providehim with the necessary provisions and permit him to depart. His story was so frank and plausible that Echeandia, with characteristic Spanish suspicion, promptly disbelieved every word of it, for why, he argued, should any sane man make so hazardous a journey unless he were a spy and well paid to risk his life? For even in those early days, remember, the Mexicans had begun to fear the ambitions of the young republic to the eastward. So, despite their protests, he ordered the Americans to be imprisoned—and no one knew better than they did that, once within the walls of a Mexican prison, there was small chance of their seeing the outside world again. Fortunately for the explorers, however, it so happened that there were three American trading-schooners lying in San Diego harbor at the time, and their captains, determined to see the rights of their fellow countrymen respected, joined in a vigorous and energetic protest to the governor against this high-handed and unjustified action. This seems to have frightened Echeandia, for he reluctantly gave orders for the release of Smith and his companions, but ordered them to leave the country at once, and by the same route by which they had come.
When the year 1827 was but a few days old, therefore, the Americans turned their faces northward,but instead of retracing their steps in accordance with Echeandia's orders, they crossed the coast range, probably through the Tejon Pass, and kept on through the fertile region now known as the San Joaquin Valley, in the hope that by crossing the Sierra farther to the northward they would escape the terrible rigors of the Colorado desert. When some three hundred miles north of San Gabriel they attempted to recross the ranges, but a feat that had been hazardous in midsummer was impossible in midwinter, and the entire expedition nearly perished in the attempt. Several of the men and all the horses died of cold and hunger, and it was only by incredible exertions that Smith and his few remaining companions, terribly frozen and totally exhausted, managed to reach the Santa Clara Valley and Mission San José. So slow was their progress that the news of their approach preceded them and caused considerable disquietude to the monks. Learning from the Indians that he and his tatterdemalion followers were objects of suspicion, Smith sent a letter to the father superior, in which he gave an account of his arrival at San Gabriel, of his interview with the governor, of his disaster in the Sierras, and of his present pitiable condition. "I am a long way from home," this pathetic missive concludes,"and am anxious to get there as soon as the nature of the case will permit. Our situation is quite unpleasant, being destitute of clothing and most of the necessaries of life, wild meat being our principal subsistence. I am, reverend father, your strange but real friend and Christian brother, Jedediah Smith." As a result of this appeal, the hospitality of the mission was somewhat grudgingly extended to the Americans, who were by this time in the most desperate condition.
Hardships that would kill ordinary men were but unpleasant incidents in the lives of the pioneers, however, and in a few weeks they were as fit as ever to resume their journey. But, upon thinking the matter over, Smith decided that he would never be content if he went back without having found out what lay still farther to the northward, for in him was the insatiable curiosity and the indomitable spirit of the born explorer. But as his force, as well as his resources, had become sadly depleted, he felt it imperative that he should first return to Salt Lake and bring on the men, horses, and provisions he had left there. Accordingly, leaving most of his party in camp at San José, he set out with only two companions, recrossed the Sierra at one of its highest points (the place he crossed is where the railway comes through to-day)and after several uncomfortably narrow escapes from landslides and from Indians, eventually reached the camp on Great Salt Lake, where he found that his people had long since given him and his companions up for dead.
Breaking camp on a July morning, in 1827, Smith, with eighteen men and two women, turned his face once more toward California. To avoid the snows of the high Sierras, he chose the route he had taken on his first journey, reaching the desert country to the north of the Colorado River in early August. It was not until the party had penetrated too far into the desert to retreat that they found that the whole country was burnt up. For several days they pushed on in the hope of finding water. Across the yellow sand wastes they would sight the sparkle of a crystal lake, and would hasten toward it as fast as their jaded animals could carry them, only to find that it was a mirage. Then the horrors preliminary to death by thirst began: the animals, their blackened tongues protruding from their mouths, staggered and fell, and rose no more; the women grew delirious and babbled incoherent nothings; even the hardiest of the men stumbled as they marched, or tried to frighten away by shouts and gestures the fantastic shapes which danced before them. Atlast there came a morning when they could go no farther. Such of them as still retained their faculties felt that it was the end—that is, all but Jedediah Smith. He was of the breed which does not know the meaning of defeat, because they are never defeated until they are dead. Loading himself with the empty water-bottles, he set out alone into the desert, determined to follow one of the numerous buffalo trails, for he knew that sooner or later it must lead him to water of some sort, even if to nothing more than a buffalo-wallow. Racked with the fever of thirst, his legs shaking from exhaustion, he plodded on, under the pitiless sun, mile after mile, hour after hour, until, struggling to the summit of a low divide, he saw the channel of a stream in the valley beneath him. The expedition was saved. Stumbling and sliding down the slope in his haste to quench his intolerable thirst, he came to a sudden halt on the river-bank. It was nothing but an empty watercourse into which he was staring—the river had run dry! The shock of such a disappointment would have driven most men stark, staring mad. Only for a moment, however, was the veteran frontiersman staggered; he knew the character of many streams in the West—that often their waters run underground afew feet below the surface, and in a moment he was on his knees digging frantically in the soft sand. Soon the sand began to grow moist, and then the coveted water slowly began to filter upward into the little excavation he had hollowed. Throwing himself flat on the ground, he buried his burning face in the muddy water—and as he did so a shower of arrows whistled about him. A war-party of Comanches, unobserved, had followed and surrounded him. He had but exchanged the danger of death by thirst for the far more dreadful fate of death by torture. Though struck by several of the arrows, he held the Indians off until he had filled his water-bottles; then, retreating slowly, taking advantage of every particle of cover, as only a veteran plainsman can, blazing away with his unerring rifle whenever an Indian was incautious enough to show a portion of his figure, Smith succeeded in getting back to his companions with the precious water. With their dead animals for breastworks, the pioneers succeeded in holding the Indians at bay for six-and-thirty hours, but on the second night the redskins, heavily reinforced, rushed them in the night, ten of the men and the two women being killed in the hand-to-hand fight which ensued, and the few horses which remained alive beingstampeded. I rather imagine that the women were shot by their own husbands, for the women of the frontier always preferred death to capture by these fiends in paint and feathers.
How Smith, calling all his craft and experience as a plainsman to his assistance, managed to lead his eight surviving companions through the encircling Indians by night, and how, wounded, horseless, and provisionless as they were, he succeeded in guiding them across the ranges to San Bernardino, is but another example of this forgotten hero's courage and resource. Having lost everything that he possessed, for the whole of his scanty savings had been invested in the ill-fated expedition, Smith, with such of his men as were strong enough to accompany him, set out to rejoin the party he had left some months previously at Mission San José. Scarcely had he set foot within that settlement, however, before he was arrested and taken under escort to Monterey, where he was taken before the governor, who, he found to his surprise and dismay, was no other than his old enemy of San Diego, Don José Echeandia. This time nothing would convince Echeandia that Smith was not the leader of an expedition which had territorial designs on California, and he promptly ordered him to be taken to prison and kept insolitary confinement as a dangerous conspirator. Thereupon Smith resorted to the same expedient he had used so successfully, and begged the captains of the American vessels in the harbor of Monterey for protection. So forcible were their representations that Echeandia finally agreed to release Smith on his swearing to leave California for good and all. To this proposal Smith willingly agreed and took the oath required of him, but, upon being released from prison, was astounded to learn that the governor had given orders that he must set out alone—that his hunters would not be permitted to accompany him. His and their protestations were disregarded. Smith must start at once and unaccompanied. He was given a horse and saddle, provisions, blankets, a rifle—and nothing more. It was a sentence of death which Echeandia had had pronounced on this American frontiersman, and both he and Smith knew it. Without having committed any crime—unless it was a crime to be an American—Jedediah Smith was driven out of the territory of a supposedly friendly nation, and told that he was at perfect liberty to make his way across two thousand miles of wilderness to the nearest American outpost—if he could.
Striking back into that range of the Sierraswhich lies southeast of Fresno, Smith succeeded in crossing them for a fourth time, evidently intending to make his way back to his old stamping-ground on the Great Salt Lake. Our knowledge of what occurred after he had crossed the ranges for the last time is confined to tales told to the settlers in later years by the Indians. While emerging from the terrible Death Valley, where hundreds of emigrants were to lose their lives during the rush to the gold-fields a quarter of a century later, he was attacked at a water-hole by a band of Indians. For many years afterward the Comanches were wont to tell with admiration how this lone pale-face, coming from out of the setting sun, had knelt behind his dead horse and held them off with his deadly rifle all through one scorching summer's day. But when nightfall came they crept up very silently under cover of the darkness and rushed him. His scalp was very highly valued, for it had cost the lives of twelve Comanche braves.
But Jedediah Smith did not die in vain. Tales of the rich and virgin country which he had found beyond the ranges flew as though with wings across the land; soon other pioneers made their way over the mountains by the trails which he had blazed; long wagon-trains crawled westwardby the routes which he had taken; strange bands of horsemen pitched their tents in the valleys where he had camped. The mission bells grew silent; the monk in his woollen robe and thecaballeroin his gold-laced jacket passed away; settlements of hardy, energetic, nasal-voiced folk from beyond the Sierras sprang up everywhere. Then one day a new flag floated over the presidio in Monterey—a flag that was not to be pulled down. The American republic had reached the western ocean, and thus was fulfilled the dream of Jedediah Smith, the man who showed the way.
Because the battles which marked its establishment were really only skirmishes, in which but an insignificant number of lives were lost, and because it boasted less than a thousand citizens all told, certain of our historians have been so undiscerning as to assert that the Bear Flag Republic was nothing but a travesty and a farce. Therein they are wrong. Though it is doubtless true that the handful of frontiersmen who raised their home-made flag, with its emblem of a grizzly bear, over the Californian presidio of Sonoma on that July morning in 1846 took themselves much more seriously than the circumstances warranted, it is equally true that their action averted the seizure of California by England, and by forcing the hand of the administration at Washington was primarily responsible for adding what is now California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and more than half of Wyoming and Colorado to the Union. The series of intrigues and affrays and insurrections which resultedin the Pacific coast becoming American instead of European form a picturesque, exciting, and virtually unwritten chapter in our national history, a chapter in which furtive secret agents and haughtycaballeros, pioneers in fringed buckskin, and naval officers in gold-laced uniforms all played their greater or their lesser parts.
To fully understand the conditions which led up to the "Bear Flag War," as it has been called, it is necessary to go back for a moment to the first quarter of the last century, when the territory of the United States ended at the Rocky Mountains and the red-white-and-green flag of Mexico floated over the whole of that vast, rich region which lay beyond. Under the Mexican régime the territory lying west of the Sierra Nevadas was divided into the provinces of Alta (or Upper) and Baja (or Lower) California, the population of the two provinces about 1845 totalling not more than fifteen thousand souls, nine-tenths of whom were Mexicans, Spaniards, and Indians, the rest American and European settlers. The foreigners, among whom Americans greatly predominated, soon became influential out of all proportion to their numbers. This was particularly true of the Americans, who, solidified by common interests, common dangers, and common ambitions, obtainedlarge grants of land, built houses which in certain cases were little short of forts, frequently married into the most aristocratic of the Californian families, and before long practically controlled the commerce of the entire territory.
It was only to be expected, therefore, that the Mexicans should become more and more apprehensive of American ambitions. Nor did President Jackson's offer, in 1835, to buy Southern California—an offer which was promptly refused—serve to do other than strengthen these apprehensions. And to make matters worse, if such a thing were possible, Commodore T. ApCatesby Jones, having heard a rumor that war had broken out between the United States and Mexico, and having reason to believe that a British force was preparing to seize California, landed a force of bluejackets and marines, and on October 21, 1842, raised the American flag over the presidio at Monterey. Although Commodore Jones, finding he had acted upon misinformation, lowered the flag next day and tendered an apology to the provincial officials, the incident did not tend to relieve the tension which existed between the Mexicans and the Americans, for it emphasized the ease with which the country could be seized, and hinted with unmistakable plainness at the ultimate intentionsof the United States. That our government intended to annex the Californias at the first opportunity that offered the Mexicans were perfectly aware, for, aroused by the descriptions of the unbelievable beauty and fertility of the country as sent back by those daring souls who had made their way across the ranges, the hearts of our people were set upon its acquisition. The great Bay of San Francisco, large enough to shelter the navies of the world and the gateway to the Orient, the fruitful, sun-kissed land beyond the Sierras, the political domination of America, and the commercial domination of the Pacific—such were the visions which inspired our people and the motives which animated our leaders, and which were intensified by the fear of England's designs upon this western land.
As the numbers of the American settlers gradually increased, the jealousy and suspicion of the Mexican officials became more pronounced. As early as 1826 they had driven Captain Jedediah Smith, the first American to make his way to California by the overland route, back into the mountains, in the midst of winter, without companions and without provisions, to be killed by the Indians. In 1840 more than one hundred American settlers were suddenly arrested by theMexican authorities on a trumped-up charge of having plotted against the government, marched under military guard to Monterey, and confined in the prison there under circumstances of the most barbarous cruelty, some fifty of them being eventually deported to Mexico in chains. Thomas O. Larkin, the American consul at Monterey, upon visiting the prisoners in the local jail where they were confined, found that the cells had no floors, and that the poor fellows stood in mud and water to their ankles. Sixty of the prisoners he found crowded into a single room, twenty feet long and eighteen wide, in which they were so tightly packed that they could not all sit at the same time, much less lie down. The room being without windows or other means of ventilation, the air quickly became so fetid that they were able to live only by dividing themselves into platoons which took turns in standing at the door and getting a few breaths of air through the bars. These men, whose only crime was that they were Americans, were confined in this hell-hole, without food except such as their friends were able to smuggle in to them by bribing the sentries, for eight days. And this treatment was accorded them, remember, not because they were conspirators—for no one knew better than the Mexican authorities that they werenot—but because it seemed the easiest means of driving them out of the country. Throughout the half-dozen years that ensued American settlers were subjected to a systematic campaign of annoyance, persecution, and imprisonment on innumerable frivolous pretexts, being released only on their promise to leave California immediately. By 1845, therefore, the harassed Americans, in sheer desperation, were ready to grasp the first opportunity which presented itself to end this intolerable tyranny for good and all.
It was not only the outrageous treatment to which they were subjected, however, nor the weakness and instability of the government under which they were living, nor even the insecurity of their lives and property and the discouragements to industry, which led the American settlers to decide to end Mexican rule in the Californias. Texas had recently been annexed by the United States against the protests of Mexico, an American army of invasion was massed along the Rio Grande, and war was certain. It required no extraordinary degree of intelligence, then, to foresee that the coming hostilities would almost inevitably result in Mexico losing her Californian provinces. Now it was a matter of common knowledge that the Mexican Government was seriously consideringthe advisability of ceding the Californias to Great Britain, and thus accomplishing the threefold purpose of wiping out the large Mexican debt due to British bankers, of winning the friendship and possibly the active assistance of England in the approaching war with the United States, and of preventing the Californias from falling into American hands. The danger was, therefore, that England would step in before us. Nor was the danger any imaginary one. Her ships were watching our ships on the Mexican coast, and her secret agents who infested the country were keeping their fingers constantly on the pulse of public opinion. Though it remains to this day a matter of conjecture as to just how far England was prepared to go to obtain this territory, there is little doubt that she had laid her plans for its acquisition in one way or another. If California was to be added to the Union, therefore, it must be by a sudden and daring stroke.
Meanwhile the authorities at Washington had not been idle. Though Larkin was ostensibly the American consul at Monterey and nothing more, in reality he was clothed with far greater powers, having been hurried from Washington to California for the express purpose of secretly encouraging an insurrectionary movement among the Americansettlers, and of keeping our government informed of the plans of the Mexicans and British. Receiving information that a powerful British fleet—the largest, in fact, which had ever been seen in Pacific waters—was about to sail for the coast of California, the administration promptly issued orders for a squadron of war-ships under Commodore John Drake Sloat to proceed at full speed to the Pacific coast, the commander being given secret instructions to back up Consul Larkin in any action which he might take, and upon receiving word that the United States had declared war against Mexico to immediately occupy the Californian ports. Then ensued one of the most momentous races in history, over a course extending half-way round the world, the contestants being the war-fleets of the two most powerful maritime nations, and the prize seven hundred thousand square miles of immensely rich territory and the mastery of the Pacific. Commodore Sloat laid his course around the Horn, while the English commander, Admiral Trowbridge, chose the route through the Indian Ocean. The first thing he saw as he entered the Bay of Monterey was the American squadron lying at anchor in the harbor.
Never was there a better example of that form of territorial expansion which has come to beknown as "pacific penetration" than the American conquest of California; never were the real designs of a nation and the schemes of its secret agents more successfully hidden. Consul Larkin, as I have already said, was quietly working, under confidential instructions from the State Department, to bring about a revolution in California without overt aid from the United States; the Californian coast towns lay under the guns of American war-ships, whose commanders likewise had secret instructions to land marines and take possession of the country at the first opportunity that presented itself; and, as though to complete the chain of American emissaries, early in 1846 there came riding down from the Sierran passes, at the head of what pretended to be an exploring and scientific expedition, the man who was to set the machinery of conquest actually in motion.
The commander of the expedition was a young captain of engineers, named John Charles Frémont, who, as the result of two former journeys of exploration into the wilderness beyond the Rockies, had already won the sobriquet of "The Pathfinder." Born in Savannah, of a French father and a Virginian mother, he was a strange combination of aristocrat and frontiersman. Dashing, debonair, fearless, reckless, a magnificent horseman, a dead-shot, a hardy and intrepid explorer,equally at home at a White House ball or at an Indian powwow, he was probably the most picturesque and romantic figure in the United States. These characteristics, combined with extreme good looks, a gallant manner, and the great public reputation he had won by the vivid and interesting accounts he had published of his two earlier journeys, had completely captured the popular imagination, so that the young explorer had become a national idol. In the spring of 1845 he was despatched by the National Government on a third expedition, which had as its ostensible object the discovery of a practicable route from the Rocky Mountains to the mouth of the Columbia River, but which was really to lend encouragement to the American settlers in California in any secession movement which they might be planning and to afford them active assistance should war be declared. Just how far the government had instructed Frémont to go in fomenting a revolution will probably never be known, but there is every reason to believe that his father-in-law, United States Senator Benton, had advised him to seize California if an opportunity presented itself, and to trust to luck (and the senator's influence) that the government would approve rather than repudiate his action.
The Sacramento Valley in 1845. From a steel engraving of the period.The Sacramento Valley in 1845.From a steel engraving of the period.
All told, Frémont's expedition numbered barelythreescore men—no great force, surely, with which to overthrow a government and win an empire. In advance of the little column rode the four Delaware braves whom Frémont had brought with him from the East to act as scouts and trackers, and whose cunning and woodcraft he was willing to match against that of the Indians of the plains. Close on their heels rode the Pathfinder himself, clad from neck to heel in fringed buckskin, at his belt a heavy army revolver and one of those vicious, double-bladed knives to which Colonel Bowie, of Texas, had already given his name, and on his head a jaunty, broad-brimmed hat, from beneath which his long, yellow hair fell down upon his shoulders. At his bridle arm rode Kit Carson, the most famous of the plainsmen, whose exploits against the Indians were even then familiar stories in every American household. Behind these two stretched out the rank and file of the expedition—bronze-faced, bearded, resolute men, well mounted, heavily armed, and all wearing the serviceable dress of the frontier.
Frémont found the American settlers scattered through the interior in a state of considerable alarm, for rumors had reached them that the Mexican Government had decided to drive them out of the country, and that orders had been issuedto the provincial authorities to incite the Indians against them. As they dwelt for the most part in small, isolated communities, scattered over a great extent of country, it was obvious that, if these rumors were true, their lives were in imminent peril. They had every reason to expect, moreover, that the news of war between Mexico and the United States would bring down on them those forms of punishment and retaliation for which the Mexicans were notorious. They were confronted, therefore, with the alternative of abandoning the homes they had built and the fields they had tilled and seeking refuge in flight across the mountains, or of remaining to face those perils inseparable from border warfare. Nor did it take them long to decide upon resistance, for they were not of the breed which runs away.
Leaving most of his men encamped in the foot-hills, Frémont pushed on to Monterey, then the most important settlement in Upper California, and the seat of the provincial government, where he called upon Don José Castro, the Mexican commandant, explained the purposes of his expedition, and requested permission for his party to proceed northward to the Columbia through the San Joaquin valley. This permission Castro grudgingly gave, but scarcely had Frémont broken camp beforethe Mexican, who had hastily gathered an overwhelming force of soldiers and vaqueros, set out upon the trail of the Americans with the avowed purpose of surprising and exterminating them. Fortunately for the Americans, Consul Larkin, getting wind of Castro's intended treachery, succeeded in warning Frémont, who instead of taking his chances in a battle on the plains against a greatly superior force, suddenly occupied the precipitous hill lying back of and commanding Monterey, known as the Hawk's Peak, intrenched himself there, and then sent word to Castro to come and take him. Although the Mexican commander made a military demonstration before the American intrenchments, he was wise enough to refrain from attempting to carry a position of such great natural strength and defended by such unerring shots as were Frémont's frontiersmen. Four days later Frémont, feeling that there was nothing to be gained by holding the position longer, and confident that the Mexicans would be only too glad to see his back, quietly broke camp one night and resumed his march toward Oregon.
Scarcely had he crossed the Oregon line, however, before he was overtaken by a messenger on a reeking horse, who had been despatched byConsul Larkin to inform him that an officer with urgent despatches from Washington had arrived at Monterey and was hastening northward to overtake him. Frémont immediately turned back, and on the shores of the Greater Klamath Lake met Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie, who had travelled from New York to Vera Cruz by steamer, had crossed Mexico to Mazatlán on horseback, and had been brought up the Pacific coast to Monterey in an American war-ship. The exact contents of the despatches with which Gillespie had been intrusted will probably never be known, for having reason to believe that his mission was suspected by the Mexicans, and being fearful of arrest, he had destroyed the despatches after committing their contents to memory. These contents he communicated to Frémont, and the fact that the latter immediately turned his horse's head Californiawards is the best proof that they contained definite instructions for him to stir up the American settlers to revolt and so gain California for the Union by what some one has aptly described as "neutral conquest."
The news of Frémont's return spread among the scattered settlers as though by wireless, and from all parts of the country hardy, determined men came pouring into camp to offer him their services.But his hands were tied. His instructions from Washington, while ordering him to lend his encouragement to an insurrectionary movement, expressly forbade him to take the initiative in any hostilities until he received word that war with Mexico had been declared—and that word had not yet come. These facts he communicated to the settlers. Frémont's assurance that the American Government sympathized with their aspirations for independence, and could be counted upon to back up any action they might take to secure it, was all that the settlers needed. On the evening of June 13, 1846, some fifty Americans living along the Sacramento River met at the ranch of an old Indian-fighter and bear-hunter named Captain Meredith, and under his leadership rode across the country in a northwesterly direction through the night. Dawn found them close to the presidio of Sonoma, which was the residence of the Mexican general Vallejo and the most important military post north of San Francisco. Leaving their horses in the shelter of the forest, the Americans stole silently forward in the dimness of the early morning, overpowered the sentries, burst in the gates, and had taken possession of the town and surrounded the barracks before the garrison was fairly awake. General Vallejo and his officers were captured in their beds,and were sent under guard to a fortified ranch known as Sutter's fort, which was situated some distance in the interior. In addition to the prisoners, nine field-guns, several hundred stands of arms, and a considerable supply of ammunition fell into the hands of the Americans. The first blow had been struck in the conquest of California.
The question now arose as to what they should do with the town they had captured, for Frémont had no authority to take it over for the United States, or to muster the men who took it into the American service. The embattled settlers found themselves, in fact, to be in the embarrassing position of being men without a country. After a council of war they decided to organize apro-tem. government of their own to administer the territory until such time as it should be formally annexed to the United States. I doubt if a government was ever established so quickly and under such rough-and-ready circumstances. After an informal ballot it was announced that William B. Ide, a leading spirit among the settlers, had been unanimously elected governor and commander-in-chief "of the independent forces"; John H. Nash, who had been a justice of the peace in the East before he had emigrated to California, being named chief justice of the new republic.
For a full-fledged nation not to have a flag ofits own was, of course, unthinkable; so, as most of its citizens were hunters and adventurers, when some one suggested that the grizzly bear, because of its indomitable courage and tenacity and its ferocity when aroused, would make a peculiarly appropriate emblem for the new banner, the suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm and a committee of two was appointed to put it into immediate execution. A young settler named William Ford, who had been imprisoned by the Mexicans in the jail at Sonoma, and who had been released when his countrymen captured the place; and William Todd, an emigrant from Illinois, were the makers of the flag. On a piece of unbleached cotton cloth, a yard wide and a yard and a half long, they painted the rude figure of a grizzly bear ready to give battle. This strange banner they raised, at noon on June 14, amid a storm of cheers and a salute from the captured cannon, on the staff where so recently had floated the flag of Mexico, and from it the Bear Flag Republic took its name.
Scarcely had Frémont received the news of the capture of Sonoma and the proclamation of the Bear Flag Republic than word reached him that a large force of Mexicans was on its way to retake the town. Disregarding his instructions from Washington, and throwing all caution tothe winds, Frémont instantly decided to stake everything on giving his support to his imperilled countrymen. His own men reinforced by a number of volunteers, he arrived at Sonoma after a forced march of thirty-six hours, only to find the Bear Flag men still in possession. The number of the enemy, as well as their intentions, had, it seems, been greatly exaggerated, the force in question being but a small party of troopers which Castro had despatched to the Mission of San Rafael, on the north shore of San Francisco Bay, to prevent several hundred cavalry remounts which were stabled there from falling into the hands of the Americans. Realizing the value of these horses to the settlers in the guerilla campaign, which seemed likely to ensue, Frémont succeeded in capturing them after a sharp skirmish with the Mexicans. Hurrying back to Sonoma, he learned that during his absence Ide and his men had repulsed an attack by a body of Mexican regulars, under General de la Torre, reinforced by a band of ruffians and desperadoes led by an outlaw named Padilla, inflicting so sharp a defeat that the only enemies left in that part of the country were the scattered fugitives from this force; these being hunted down and summarily dealt with by the frontiersmen. Having now irrevocably committed himself to the insurgent cause, and feelingthat, if he were to be hanged, it might as well be for a sheep as for a lamb, Frémont decided on the capture of San Francisco. The San Francisco of 1846 had little in common with the San Francisco of to-day, remember, for on the site where the great Western metropolis now stands there was nothing but a village consisting of a few-score adobe houses and the Mexican presidio, or fort, the latter containing a considerable supply of arms and ammunition. Accompanied by Kit Carson, Lieutenant Gillespie, and a small detachment of his men, Frémont crossed the Bay of San Francisco in a sailing-boat by night, and took the Mexican garrison so completely by surprise that they surrendered without firing a shot. The gateway to the Orient was ours.
Frémont now prepared to take the offensive against Castro, who was retreating on Los Angeles, but just as he was about to start on his march southward a messenger brought the great news that Admiral Sloat, having received word that hostilities had commenced along the Rio Grande, had landed his marines at Monterey, and on July 7, to the thunder of saluting war-ships, had raised the American flag over the presidio, and had proclaimed the annexation of California to the Union. When the Bear Flag men learned the great news they went into a frenzy of enthusiasm;whooping, shouting, singing snatches of patriotic songs, and firing their pistols in the air. Quickly the standard of the fighting grizzly was lowered and the flag of stripes and stars hoisted in its place, while the rough-clad, bearded settlers, who had waited so long and risked so much that this very thing might come to pass, sang the Doxology with tears running down their faces. As the folds of the familiar banner caught the breeze and floated out over the flat-roofed houses of the little town, Ide, the late chief of the three-weeks republic, jumping on a powder barrel, swung his sombrero in the air and shouted: "Now, boys, all together, three cheers for the Union!" The moist eyes and the lumps in the throats brought by the sight of the old flag did not prevent the little band of frontiersmen from responding with a roar which made the windows of Sonoma rattle.
Now, as a matter of fact, Admiral Sloat had placed himself in a very embarrassing position, for he had based his somewhat precipitate action in seizing California on what he had every reason to believe was authentic news that war between the United States and Mexico had actually begun, but which proved next day to be merely an unconfirmed rumor. If a state of war really did exist, then both Sloat and Frémont were justified in their aggressions; but if it did not, then theymight have considerable difficulty in explaining their action in commencing hostilities against a nation with which we were at peace. So Sloat began "to get cold feet," asserting that he was forced to act as he had because he had received reliable information that the British, whose fleet was lying off Monterey, were on the point of seizing California themselves. Frémont, on his part, claimed to have acted in defence of the American settlers in the interior, who without his assistance would have been massacred by the Mexicans. At this juncture Commodore Stockton arrived at Monterey in the frigateCongress, and as Sloat was now thoroughly frightened and only too glad to transfer the responsibility he had assumed to other shoulders, Stockton, who was the junior officer, asked for and readily obtained permission to assume command of the operations. Frémont, who had reached Monterey with several hundred riflemen, was appointed commander-in-chief of the land forces by Stockton, and was ordered to embark his men on one of the war-ships and proceed at once to capture San Diego, at that time by far the most important place in California. Stockton himself, after raising the American flag over San Francisco and Santa Barbara, sailed down the coast to San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, where he disembarked a force of bluejacketsand marines for the taking of the latter city, within which the Mexican commander, General Castro, had shut himself up with a considerable number of troops, and where he promised to make a desperate resistance.
As Stockton came marching up from San Pedro at the head of his column he was met by a Mexican carrying a flag of truce and bearing a message from Castro warning the American commander in the most solemn terms that if his forces dared to set foot within Los Angeles they would be going to their own funerals. "Present my compliments to General Castro," Stockton told the messenger, "and ask him to have the kindness to have the church bells tolled for our funerals at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, for at that hour I shall enter the city." Upon receipt of this disconcerting message Castro slipped out of Los Angeles that night, without firing a shot in its defence, and at eight o'clock on the following morning, Stockton, just as he had promised, came riding in at the head of his men.
After garrisoning the surrounding towns and ridding the countryside of prowling bands of Mexican guerillas, Stockton officially proclaimed California a Territory of the United States, instituted a civil government along American lines, and appointed Frémont as the first Territorialgovernor. Before the year 1846 had drawn to a close these two Americans, the one a rough-and-ready sailor, the other a youthful and impetuous soldier, assisted by a few hundred marines and frontiersmen, had completed the conquest and pacification of a territory having a greater area and greater natural resources than those of all the countries conquered by Napoleon put together. Thus ended the happy, lazy, luxury-loving society of Spanish California. Another society, less luxurious, less light-hearted, less contented, but more energetic, more progressive, and better fitted for the upbuilding of a nation, took its place. There are still to be found in California a few men, white-haired and stoop-shouldered now, who were themselves actors in this drama I have described, and who delight to tell of those stirring days when Frémont and his frontiersmen came riding down from the passes, and the embattled settlers of Sonoma founded their short-lived Republic of the Bear.
In one of the public squares of San José, which is the capital of Costa Rica, there is a marble statue of a stern-faced young woman, with her foot planted firmly on a gentleman's neck. The young woman is symbolic of the Republic of Costa Rica, and the gentleman ground beneath her heel is supposed to represent the American filibuster and soldier of fortune, William Walker. Now, before going any farther, justice requires me to explain that Walker's downfall was not due to Costa Rica, as the citizens of that little republic would like the world to believe, and as the bombastic statue in the plaza of its capital would lead one to suppose, but to a far greater and richer power, whose victories were won with dollars instead of bayonets, whose capital was New York City, and whose name was Cornelius Vanderbilt.
To the younger generation the name of William Walker carries no significance, but to the gray-heads whose recollections antedate the Civil War the mention of it brings back a flood of thrillingmemories, while throughout the length and breadth of that wild region lying between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Isthmus of Panama it is still a synonym for unfaltering courage. His weakness was ambition; his fault was failure. Had he succeeded in realizing his ambitions—and he failed only by the narrowest of margins—he would have been lauded as another Cortez, and would have received stars and crosses instead of bullets. Had his life not been cut short by a Honduran firing-party, it is possible, indeed probable, that, instead of there being six states in Central America there would be but one, and in that one the institution of slavery might still exist. Though I have scant sympathy with the motives which animated Walker, and though I believe that his death was for the best good of the Central American peoples, he was the very antithesis of the cutthroat and blackguard and outlaw which he has been painted, being, on the contrary, a very brave and honest gentleman, of whom his countrymen have no reason to feel ashamed, and that is why I am going to tell his story.
The eldest son of a Scotch banker, Walker was born in 1824 in Nashville, Tennessee. His father, a stiff-necked Presbyterian who held morning and evening prayers, asked an interminable grace beforeevery meal, and took his family to church three times on Sunday, had set his heart on his son entering the ministry, and it was with a pulpit and parish in view that young Walker was educated. By the time that he was ready to enter the theological school, however, he decided that he preferred M.D. instead of D.D. after his name, whereupon, much to his father's disappointment, he insisted on taking the medical course at the University of Tennessee, following it up by two years at the University of Edinburgh. Thoroughly equipped to practise his chosen profession, he opened an office in Philadelphia, but in a few months the routine of a doctor's life palled upon him, so, taking down his brass door-plate, he went to New Orleans, where, after two years of study, he was admitted to the bar. But he soon found that briefs and summonses were scarcely more to his liking than prescriptions and pills, so, with the prompt decision which was one of his most marked characteristics, he closed his law-office and obtained a position as editorial writer on a New Orleans newspaper. Within a year the restlessness which had led him to abandon the church, medicine, and the bar caused him to give up journalism in its turn. At this time, 1852, the Californian gold fever was at its mad height, andto the Pacific coast were pouring streams of fortune-seekers and adventure-lovers from every quarter of the globe. One of the latter was Walker, and it was while editor of the San FranciscoHerald, when only twenty-eight years old, that his amazing career really began.
Walker was not of the sort who could content himself for any length of time within the stuffy walls of an editorial sanctum. His fingers were made to grasp something more virile than the pen. Nor did he make any attempt to win a fortune with pick and shovel in the gold fields. His ambitions were neither intellectual nor mercenary, but political, for from his boyhood days in Nashville he had dreamed, as all boys worth their salt do dream, of some day founding a state, with himself as its ruler, in that wild and savage region below the Rio Grande. Enlisting half a hundred kindred souls from the hordes of the reckless, the adventurous, and the needy which were pouring into California by boat and wagon-train, Walker chartered a small vessel and set sail from San Francisco for the coast of Mexico. His avowed object was a purely humanitarian one: to protect the women and children living along the Mexican frontier from massacre by the Indians, the state of Sonora being at that time more under thedominion of the Apaches than it was under that of Mexico. But it was not the protection of the women and children—though they needed protection badly enough, goodness knows—which led Walker to embark on this hare-brained expedition. He was lured southward by a dream of empire, an empire of which he should be the ruler, and which should be founded on slavery. By this time, remember, the slavery question in the United States had become exceedingly acute, the future of the institution on this continent largely depending upon whether the next States admitted to the Union should be slave or free. Walker was a sincere, even fanatical, believer in slavery. Born and reared in an atmosphere of slavery, to Walker it was as sacred, as God-given an institution as the Fast of Ramadan is to the Moslem or the Feast of the Passover to the Jew. Convinced that friction over this question would sooner or later force the slave-holding States to secede from the Union, he determined to extend the area of slavery by conquering that portion of northern Mexico immediately adjacent to the United States, to establish an independent government there, and eventually to annex his country to the South, thus counteracting the growing movement for abolition, which, with the admission of new Northernterritories, already hinted at the overthrow of slavery.
Financed by Southern friends whose motives were probably considerably less altruistic than his own, Walker landed at Cape San Lucas, the extreme southern point of the Mexican territory of Southern California, in October, 1852, with an "army of invasion" of forty-five men. Instead of hastening to protect the women and children of whom he had talked so feelingly, he sailed up the coast to the territorial capital of La Paz, which he seized, where he issued a proclamation announcing the annexation of the neighboring state of Sonora, in which he had not yet set foot, giving to the two states the name of the "Republic of Sonora," and proclaiming himself its first president. As soon as the news of this initial success reached San Francisco, Walker's sympathizers there busied themselves in recruiting reinforcements, three hundred desperadoes who boasted that they were afraid of nothing "on two feet or four" being shipped to him at La Paz a few weeks later. These men were looked upon as hard cases even in the San Francisco of the early fifties, and, if they had not consented to leave the country to assist Walker, many of them would probably have left it sooner or later at theend of a rope in the hands of the local vigilance committee. When this force of scoundrels arrived at La Paz and found themselves under the command of a quiet, mild-mannered, beardless youth of twenty-eight, instead of the brawny, foul-mouthed, swashbuckling leader whom they had expected, they promptly hatched a scheme to blow up the magazine, seize the ship and the stores of the expedition in the ensuing confusion, and make their way back to the United States, leaving Walker to shift for himself. Warning of the conspiracy reaching him, however, Walker displayed for the first time those traits which were later to make his name a word of terror in the ears of men who bragged that they feared neither God nor man. Arresting the ringleaders, he had two of them tried by court-martial and shot within an hour; two of the others he ordered flogged and drummed out of camp, to take their chances among the hostile Mexicans and Indians. But, though this act gained Walker the fear and respect of his followers, the newcomers among them had no stomach for a leader who could punish, so when he called for volunteers to accompany him in the conquest of Sonora less than a hundred men offered to follow him.
From the very first the shadow of failure hungover the enterprise. To begin with, there is no more savage and desolate region on the American continent than the peninsula of Lower California, it being so barren and destitute that even the lizards have to scramble for an existence. Mexicans and Indians hung upon the flanks of the little column night and day, as buzzards follow a dying steer. There was neither medicine nor medical instruments with the expedition, and the wounded died from lack of the most elementary care. Their shoes gave out and the men marched bare-foot over sun-scorched rocks and needle cactus, leaving a trail of crimson behind them in the sand. Their provisions were soon exhausted, and their only food was beef which they killed on the march. For years afterward the route of that ill-fated expedition could be traced from La Paz to the Colorado River by the bleaching skeletons of the men who fell by the way. By the time the head of the Gulf of California was reached the expedition had dwindled to barely twoscore men. It was no longer a question of conquering Sonora; it was a question of getting back to the States alive.
With sinking heart, but imperturbable face, Walker led his little band of starving, fever-racked, exhausted men toward the Californianline. Three miles of road led through a mountain pass into the United States and safety. But the pass was held by a force of Mexican soldiery under Colonel Melendrez, and his Indian allies were scattered over the plain below. And, as though to give a final touch of irony to the situation in which Walker and his men found themselves, from their position on the Mexican hillside they could look across into American territory, could see the American flag, their flag, fluttering over the military post south of San Diego, could even see the sun glinting upon the bits and sabres of the troop of American cavalry drawn up along the border. Four Indians bearing a flag of truce approached. They bore a message from the Mexican commander to the filibusters. If they would surrender their leader and give up their arms, Melendrez sent word, they would be permitted to leave the country unmolested. But after you have fought and bled and marched and starved with a man for a year, you are not likely to abandon him, particularly when the end is in sight, so they sent back word to Melendrez that if he wanted their arms he would have to come and take them. Meanwhile the American commander, Major McKinstry, had drawn up his troopers along the boundary-line and awaited theresult of the unequal struggle like an umpire at a foot-ball game. Walker, who knew perfectly well that he deserved no aid from the United States, and that he would get none, appreciated that if he was to get out of this predicament alive it must be by his own wits. Concealing a dozen of his men among the rocks and sage-brush which lined the road on either side, with the remainder of his force he pretended to beat a panic-stricken retreat. Melendrez, confident that it was now all over but the shouting, swept down the road in pursuit. But as the Mexicans rode into the ambush which Walker had prepared for them the hidden filibusters emptied a dozen saddles at a single volley, and the soldiers, terrified and demoralized, wheeled and fled for their lives. Thirty minutes later the President, the Cabinet, and all that remained of the standing army of the late Republic of Sonora stumbled across the American boundary and surrendered to Major McKinstry. It was May 8, 1854, and in such fashion Walker celebrated his thirtieth birthday.
Sent to San Francisco as a political prisoner, Walker was tried for violating the neutrality laws of the United States, was acquitted—for the members of a Californian jury could not but sympathize with such a man—and once again found himselfwriting editorials for the San FranciscoHerald. His narrow escape from death in Mexico had only served to whet his appetite for adventure, however, so when he was not doing his newspaper work he was poring over an atlas in search of some other land where a determined man might carve out a career for himself with his sword. Staring at the map of Middle America, his finger again and again paused, as though by instinct, on Nicaragua. Here was indeed a fertile field for the filibuster. Not only was the country enormously rich in every form of natural resources, but it had a kindly and moderately healthy climate, and, what was the most important of all, owing to its peculiar geographical position, it commanded what was at that time one of the great trade-routes of the world. At this time there were three routes to the Californian gold-fields: one, the long and weary voyage around the Horn; another, by the dangerous and costly Overland Trail; and the third, which was the shortest, cheapest, and most popular, across Nicaragua. If you will glance at the map, you will see that, barring the Isthmus of Panama, which is several hundred miles farther south, Nicaragua is the narrowest neck of land between the two great oceans, and that in the middle of this neck is the great Lake Nicaragua,which is upward of fifty miles in width. An American corporation known as the Accessory Transit Company, of which the first Cornelius Vanderbilt was president, had obtained a concession from the Nicaraguan Government to transport passengers across Central America by this route. Passengersen routefrom New York or New Orleans to the gold-fields were landed by the company's steamers at Greytown, on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, and transported thence by light-draught steamers up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua. Here they were transferred to larger steamers and taken across the lake to Virgin Bay, the twelve-mile journey from there to the port of San Juan del Sur, on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, being performed in carriages or on the backs of mules. During a single year twenty-five thousand passengers crossed Nicaragua by this route. It did not take Walker long to appreciate, therefore, that the man who succeeded in making himself master of this, the shortest route to California, would be in a position of considerable strength. Not only this, but Nicaragua was torn by internal dissensions; the army was divided into a dozen factions; the peasantry were down-trodden and poverty-stricken; the government was inconceivably corrupt; and the usual revolution was, ofcourse, in progress, in which the sister republics of Honduras and Costa Rica were preparing to take a hand. Everything considered, Nicaragua's only hope of salvation from anarchy lay in finding for a ruler a man with an inflexible sense of justice and an iron hand. Walker determined to be that man.
In view of what I have already told of his exploits, you have doubtless pictured Walker as a tall, broad-shouldered man of commanding presence. As a matter of fact, he was nothing of the sort. In height he was but five feet five inches, and correspondingly slender. A remarkably square jaw and a long chin lent strength and determination to features which were plain almost to the point of coarseness. His eyes, which were of a singularly light gray, are universally spoken of as having been his most noticeable feature, for they were so large and fixed that the eyelids scarcely showed, and so penetrating that they seemed to bore holes into the person at whom they were looking. He was extremely taciturn, and when he did speak it was briefly and to the point. He had an unusual command of English, however, and his words were always carefully chosen. A stranger to fear, men who followed him on his campaigns assert that even under the most tryingand perilous circumstances they had never seen him change countenance or betray emotion by so much as the contraction of a muscle. He was wholly lacking in personal vanity, and when in the field wore his trousers tucked into his boots, a flannel shirt open at the neck, and a faded black campaign hat. In a land where all three habits were universal, he neither drank, smoked, nor swore; he never looked at women; his word, once given, was never broken; the justice he meted out to disobedient followers, though stern to the point of brutality, was absolutely impartial. Highly ambitious, it is paying but the barest justice to his memory to say that his aspirations, however little we may sympathize with them, were wholly political and never mercenary, his whole career showing him to be utterly careless of wealth. Taking everything into consideration, we have good reason to be proud that William Walker was an American.
In 1854, as I have already remarked, Nicaragua was split asunder by civil war. The opposing parties were the Legitimists and the Democrats. What they were fighting about is of no consequence; perhaps they did not know themselves. In any event, in August of that year an American named Byron Cole, acting as an agent for Walker,arrived at the headquarters of the Democratic forces with a novel offer. Briefly, he agreed to contract to supply the Democratic party with three hundred American "colonists liable to military duty," these settlers to receive a grant of fifty-two thousand acres of land, and to have the privilege of becoming citizens of Nicaragua. This contract was approved and signed by General Castillon, the Democratic leader, and with it in his pocket Cole hastened to San Francisco and Walker. After taking the precaution of submitting the contract to the civil and military authorities in San Francisco, and receiving their assurances that it did not violate the neutrality laws of the United States, Walker immediately set about recruiting his "colonists," and in May, 1855, just a year after his escape from Mexico, he was ready to sail. Although, as I have said, the Federal authorities had passed upon the legality of the contract, it was a noticeable fact that the peaceable settlers took with them Winchester rifles instead of spades, and Colt's revolvers instead of hoes, and that the hold of the brigVesta, on which they sailed from San Francisco, was filled with ammunition and machine guns instead of agricultural implements and machinery.
After a long and stormy voyage down thePacific coast Walker and his men landed, on June 16, at the port of Realejo, in Nicaragua, where he was met by Castillon. Walker was at once commissioned a colonel; Achilles Kewen, who had just come from Cuba, where he had been fighting under the patriot Lopez, a lieutenant-colonel; and Timothy Crocker, a fighting Irishman, who was a veteran of Walker's Sonora expedition, a major; the corps being organized as an independent command under the name ofLa Falange Americana—the American Phalanx. At this time the Transit route from the Atlantic to the Pacific was held by the Legitimist forces, and these Walker was ordered to dislodge, it being essential to the success of the Democrats that they gain possession of this interoceanic highway. Accordingly, a week after setting foot in Nicaragua, Walker, at the head of fifty-seven of his Americans and one hundred and fifty native soldiers, set out for Rivas, a town on the western shore of Lake Nicaragua held by twelve hundred of the enemy. The first battle of his Nicaraguan campaign ended in the most complete disaster. At the first volley his native allies bolted, leaving the Americans surrounded by ten times their number of Legitimists. The enemy instantly perceived this defection, and pressed the Phalanxso hard that its members were driven to take shelter behind a row of adobe huts. No one knew better than Walker that if the enemy charged he and his men were done for, so he decided to do the charging himself. Out from behind the huts dashed the red-shirted filibusters, firing as they came, and so ferocious was their onslaught that they succeeded in cutting their way through the encircling army and escaping into the jungle. Though six of the Americans were killed, including Walker's two lieutenants, Kewen and Crocker, and twice as many wounded, the battle of Rivas established the reputation of Americans in Central America for years to come, for a hundred and fifty of the enemy fell before their deadly fire.