To-day it seems strange to read such arguments as Walker used to defend the institution of slavery. But by the lurid light of his sentences we can see something of the bitter conflict which then raged between the friends and the enemies of slavery. His contempt for the Abolitionist party speaks in every line, whilst his defence of the now obsolete system of unspeakable wrong seems as puerile as the solemnly sincere essays of a Mather on the evils of witchcraft. He admires the "wisdom and excellence of the Divine economy in the creation of the black race," and the providence of letting Africa lie idle until the discovery of America gave a chance of utilizing the raw material of slavery. No self-appointed theological dragoman to the court of Heaven ever showed more readiness in interpreting the sentiments of Providence than he does when he piously asks, "And is it not thus that one race secures for itself liberty with order, while it bestows on the other comfort and Christianity?"
Did the author of such views look at his subject through a moral single-convex lens which presented every object inverted? Was he colour-blind to right and wrong, or did he wilfully and deliberately present the side which he knew to be ignoble and the opposite of true? He was perfectly sincere. Walker was no worse, and no better, than nine-tenths of his fellow citizens in the Southern States, who honestly believed in the divine right of slave-holding, and testified to their conviction by the willing sacrifice of their blood and treasure. A wrong defeated, dead and buried, is a wrong which becomes visible to the blindest eyes. Whether we, who pass prompt sentence on it, might perceive its enormity so plainly, had the "leaded dice of war" turned up differently, is a speculation as idle as any other on the might-have-beens of history.
The severe punishment inflicted on the allies at Masaya and Granada had the effect of keeping them for a time in check. A few days after those engagements, Walker received a most valuable ally in the person of General Charles Frederic Henningsen, an able officer, who had seen service and achieved distinction in many lands.
CHAPTER XIII
Henningsen — Early service with Zumalacarregui — Campaigning with the Prophet of the Caucasus — Joins Kossuth — Arrival in America — Omotepe — A gallant defence — Watters carries the barricades.
Henningsen was born in Belgium, son of a Scandinavian officer in the British service and his wife, an Irish lady. At the age of nineteen he left his home to take service under Don Carlos, in 1834. He was assigned to duty on the staff of the sturdy old partisan, Zumalacarregui, from whose rough school of war he graduated with the rank of colonel and an honour of nobility, the only rewards left in the power of the Bourbon to bestow.
In one engagement he captured single-handed three cavalrymen and their horses, and was the first man to enter Villa Real, after chasing the enemy three leagues. For this he was offered the choice of a commission as first lieutenant in the general's body guard or the cross of St. Ferdinand. He chose the cross.
The Order of Isabella the Catholic was subsequently conferred on him, with promotion, for his gallantry before Madrid, but a wound received in the foot, which caused him much suffering and refused to heal, compelled him to ask for sick leave. As he was with difficulty wending his way homeward he was pursued by the enemy and abandoned by his guide. After hiding for three days he was captured and imprisoned with three other foreigners. Feigning an illness which afterwards became real, he was removed to a hospital. The English doctor in attendance knew only of the prisoner's feint and admired the natural way in which the shivering fits were counterfeited. In vain the patient, who was really ill, protested that he was so, until after a time the truth of his assertion became apparent, for typhus fever had declared itself and the doctor was, too late, convinced of it. For twenty-one days Henningsen's life was despaired of, during which time his friends interceded for him. His release was demanded by the British Government, but General Espartero sternly refused it, saying his life was forfeited, for he had both with his sword and pen proved himself a dangerous foe. At the reiterated request of Lord Palmerston, backed by the Duke of Wellington and others, Espartero, however, was compelled to yield, as the withdrawal of the foreign legion was threatened if he persisted in his refusal.
Henningsen, on his return to England, published a couple of volumes of personal recollections, which still hold a place in literature. His story was told in a simple and direct style, which showed marked literary ability. But the world was then too full of doing, for an active mind to content itself with thinking or saying. Schamyl the Prophet had unfurled his sacred banner, lit the fires of revolution on the Caucasus, and thrown the gage of battle to the mighty Czar himself. His cause was just enough, his case was desperate enough, to enlist the sympathies of the young knight-errant, who soon found himself battling beside wild mountaineers in Caucasian snows, and completing the education begun on the vine-clad hills of Spain. That campaign over, he improved his leisure in writing two or three books on Russian life, which increased his literary reputation without inducing him to take up a life of letters. The restraints of civilisation were too irksome, and he fled to the wilds of Asia Minor, where the news of Hungary's revolt against Austrian and Russian despotism found him. He arrived on the scene of action too late to take part in anything but the sorrowful ending. Gorgey's treason, if such indeed it were, had turned the scale against the patriots. Henningsen submitted a plan of operations to Kossuth, who decided that it was now too late for offensive action. All that remained was to offer his sword to the forlorn hope. The offer was gladly accepted. He joined Bem in the last ditch at Komorn, aiding not a little in the stout defence of that place.
When the pitiful collapse came, Henningsen was one of the chieftains who were outlawed and had a price set upon their heads. He narrowly escaped capture and its inevitable consequence, death. Once he was saved by the tact of a lady, a relative of Kossuth, who, when the police were searching for a likeness of the fugitive, allowed them to find a portrait of some stranger, upon which she had hastily written the words, "From your friend, C. F. Henningsen." Being questioned, she averred that the likeness was not Henningsen's, but with so much apparent confusion as to make them disbelieve her. Copies of it were accordingly printed and distributed with the hue and cry, to the manifest benefit of the fugitive. Again, upon the very border of Turkey, he was chased so closely by a party of Haynau's bloodhound troops that capture seemed inevitable, and he had prepared a dose of poison, which he always carried with him, to be swallowed at the moment of arrest. His Caucasian experience had taught him that mercy was not to be expected of Cossack victors. More fortunate than many of his comrades, he managed to elude his foes and escape across the boundary, to join Kossuth. With him he crossed the Atlantic, never to return. In the United States he shared the social and political distinction of his leader.