The programme was always the same: the sudden rush of the filibusters with their high, shrill yell; the taking of the barracks and the cathedral in the Plaza.
From a print in the New York Public Library.
Cornelius Vanderbilt was not a person who could be bluffed or frightened. Infuriated at the action of the filibuster President, he immediately withdrew from service the ships of the Transit Company in both oceans, thus cutting off communication between Nicaragua and the United States, and thereby Walker's source of supplies. But the grim old financier was not content with that. Recruiting a force of foreign adventurers on his own account, he despatched them to Central America with orders to assist the Costa Ricans, whom he liberally supplied with money, arms, and ammunition, in their war against Walker. Turning then to Washington, he had little difficulty in inducing Secretary of State Marcy, who was known to be one of his creatures, to use the government forces in driving Walker out of Nicaragua. To Commodore Mervin, who was his personal friend, Secretary Marcy communicated his wishes, or rather Vanderbilt's wishes, and these Mervin in turn transmitted to Captain Davis, commanding the man-of-war St. Mary's, who was ordered to proceed at full speed to San Juan del Sur, on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, and to force Walker out of that country. Never has the government of the United States lent itself to the designs of predatory wealth so disgracefully and so flagrantly as it did when, at the dictation of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and without a shadow of right or excuse, it used the American navy to oust William Walker from the presidency to which he had been legally elected by a sovereign people. Its unjustified persecution of Walker to serve the spite of a money-lord forms one of the darkest stains on our national history.
When Davis arrived in Nicaragua he found Walker, his forces terribly reduced by death, fever, and desertion (for his means of supply had, as I have said, been stopped), besieged by the allies in the town of Rivas. Food was running short, the hospital was filled with wounded, and many of his men were helpless from fever. Captain Davis demanded that Walker surrender to him upon the ground of humanity, but the indomitable filibuster replied that when he did not have enough men left to man the guns he intended to take refuge on board his little schooner, the Granada, which lay in the harbor, and seek his fortune elsewhere. "You will not do that," answered Davis, "for I am going to seize your vessel." With his only hope of escape thus cut off, there was nothing for Walker to do but capitulate. Therefore, on May 1, 1857, William Walker, President of Nicaragua, whose title was as legally sound as that of any ruler in the world, surrendered to the forces his own country had sent against him, and one more argument was given to those who claimed that it was not liberty which we upheld and worshipped, but the almighty dollar. When Walker arrived in New York a few weeks later he found the city bedecked with flags and bunting in his honor. On but two other occasions has the American metropolis given such a reception to a visitor: once when Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, rode up Broadway, and years later, when Dewey returned, fresh from his victory at Manila. Walker's drive from the Battery to Madison Square was like a triumphal progress, for his gallantry in action and his successes against overwhelming odds had aroused the admiration of his countrymen, just as his outrageous treatment by the government had excited their indignation. Though legally he had serious grounds for complaint, he received scant consideration when he placed his demands for reparation before the Department of State at Washington. But the cold shoulder turned toward him by official Washington was more than made up for by the welcome he received in the South, where he was acclaimed as a hero and a martyr. He was banqueted in every town and city from Baltimore to New Orleans, and when he entered a box in the opera-house of the latter place, the audience, forgetting the play, rose as one man to cheer him.
Within a month Walker had raised enough money and recruits in the South to enable him to try his fortunes once more in Nicaragua. Sailing from New Orleans with one hundred and fifty men, he landed at San Juan del Norte, on the Caribbean side, marched upon and captured the town of Castillo Viejo together with four of the Transit Company's steamers, and was, indeed, in a fair way to again make himself master of Nicaragua when the United States once more interfered, the frigate Wabash, under command of Commodore Hiram Pawlding, dropping anchor in a position where her guns commanded the filibusters' camp, her commander demanding Walker's immediate surrender. The flag-officer who presented Walker with Pawlding's demand tactlessly remarked: "General, I'm sorry to see you here. A man like you deserves to command better men." "If I had even a third of the force you have brought against me," Walker responded grimly, "I'd soon show you who commands the better men." For the third time in his career Walker was forced to surrender to his own countrymen, and was sent north under parole as a prisoner of war. But, although Pawlding had acted precisely as Davis had done, President Buchanan, instead of thanking him, not only publicly reprimanded him, but retired him from active service, and when Walker presented himself at the White House as a prisoner, refused to receive his surrender, or to recognize him as being in the custody of the United States. All of which, however, was scant consolation for Walker.
To regain the presidency of which he had been unjustly deprived had now become an obsession with Walker. In spite of a proclamation issued by President Buchanan forbidding him to take further part in Central American affairs, he sailed from Mobile, on December 1, 1858, with a hundred and fifty of his veterans. His voyage was brought to a sudden and wholly unlooked-for termination, however, for he was wrecked in a gale off the coast of Honduras, whence he was rescued by a British war-ship which happened to be in the vicinity and brought back to the United States. By this time Walker had become almost as much of a nightmare to the governments of the United States and Great Britain (for the latter, both because of the proximity of her colony of British Honduras and of her large financial interests in the other Central American countries, had no desire to see that region again plunged into war) as Napoleon was to the Holy Alliance, and as a result both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Nicaragua were patrolled by the war-ships of the two nations to prevent Walker's return. Appreciating that, under the circumstances, it was about as easy for him to land on Nicaraguan soil as it was to land on the moon, Walker, with a hundred of his devoted followers, slipped silently out of Mobile harbor on an August night in 1860, and landed, a few days later, on a little island off the coast of Honduras known as Ruatan.
And so we come to the last chapter in this extraordinary man's extraordinary career. Within a day after his landing at Ruatan, Walker had crossed to the mainland and captured the important seaport of Trujillo. But the ill-fortune which from the beginning had dogged him like a shadow was not to desert him now, for scarcely had the flag of Honduras which fluttered above the barracks been replaced by the blue-and-white banner of the filibusters when a British frigate dropped anchor off the town. Twenty minutes later a boat's crew of British bluejackets tossed their oars as they ran alongside Trujillo wharf, and a naval officer immaculate in white and gold, stepping ashore, inquired for General Walker, and presented him with a message. It was from Captain Salmon, commanding the British man-of-war Icarus, which lay outside, and demanded the immediate evacuation of the city by the filibusters, as the British Government held a mortgage on the revenues of the port and intended to protect them, by force if necessary. Walker answered that as he had made Trujillo a free port, the British claims were no longer valid. "Captain Salmon instructs me to inform you, sir," replied the British officer, as he prepared to re-enter his gig, "that he will give you until to-morrow morning to make your decision. If you do not then surrender he will be compelled to bombard the town." As a strong force of Hondurans had in the mean time appeared on the land side of the city and were preparing to attack, Walker realized that his position had become untenable, so that night he and his men slipped silently out of the sleeping city and started down the coast with the intention of making their way overland to Nicaragua. When the British landed the next morning they were only just in time to prevent the sick and wounded whom Walker had been forced to leave behind him in his retreat from falling into the hands of the ferocious Hondurans. Learning of Walker's flight, Salmon immediately started down the coast on the Icarus in pursuit.
They overtook Walker at a little fishing village near the mouth of the Rio Negro, several boat-loads of sailors and marines being sent up the river to take him. But the coast of Honduras is a good second to the Gold Coast in the deadliness of its climate, so that when the landing party reached the little cluster of wretched hovels where Walker and his men had taken refuge, they found the filibusters too far gone with fever to oppose them. To Captain Salmon's demand for an unconditional surrender, Walker, who was so weak that he could scarcely stand, inquired if he was surrendering to the English or to the Hondurans. Captain Salmon twice assured him distinctly that it was to the English, whereupon the filibusters, at Walker's orders, laid down their arms and were taken aboard the Icarus. No sooner had he arrived back at Trujillo, however, than Captain Salmon, breaking the word he had given as an officer and a gentleman, and in defiance of every law of humanity, turned his prisoners over to the Honduran authorities. Salmon, who was young and pompous and had a life-size opinion of himself and his position, interceded for all of the prisoners except Walker, and obtained their release, but he informed the filibuster chieftain that he would plead for him only on condition that he would ask his intercession as an American citizen. But Walker, imbittered by the treatment he had received at the hands of his own government and disdaining to turn to it for assistance in his adversity, answered proudly: "The President of Nicaragua is a citizen of Nicaragua," and turned his back upon the Englishman who had betrayed him.
He was tried by court martial on September 11, 1860, and after the barest formalities was sentenced to be shot at daybreak the next morning. The place selected for his execution was a strip of sandy beach, and to it the condemned man walked as coolly as though taking a morning stroll. Before him tramped a detachment of slovenly Honduran infantry, who, with their brown, wizened faces, their ill-fitting uniforms, and their jaunty caps, looked more like monkeys than men; behind him marched the firing-party, with weapons at the charge; beside him was a priest bearing a crucifix and murmuring the prayers for the dying. As the little procession came to a halt within the hollow square of soldiery, Walker waved away the handkerchief with which they would have blindfolded him, and, cool and straight and soldierly as though in command of his Phalanx, took his stand before the firing-party.
"I die a Roman Catholic," he said in Spanish in a voice clear and unafraid. "The war which I made upon you was wrong and I take this opportunity of asking your pardon. I die with resignation, though it would be a consolation for me to feel that my death is for the good of society." As he ceased speaking, the officer in command of the troops dropped the point of his sword, the levelled rifles of the firing-party spoke as one, and Walker fell. But, though every bullet entered his body, he still lived. So a sergeant stepped forward with a cocked revolver and blew out his brains. With that shot there passed the soul of a very brave and gallant gentleman who deserved from his country better treatment than he received.