Real Soldiers of Fortune

by Richard Harding Davis

But it was not to save women and children that Walker sought to conquer the State of Sonora. At the time of his expedition the great question of slavery was acute; and if in the States next to be admitted to the Union slavery was to be prohibited, the time had come, so it seemed to this statesman of twenty-eight years, when the South must extend her boundaries, and for her slaves find an outlet in fresh territory. Sonora already joined Arizona. By conquest her territory could easily be extended to meet Texas. As a matter of fact, strategically the spot selected by William Walker for the purpose for which he desired it was almost perfect. Throughout his brief career one must remember that the spring of all his acts was this dream of an empire where slavery would be recognized. His mother was a slave-holder. In Tennessee he had been born and bred surrounded by slaves. His youth and manhood had been spent in Nashville and New Orleans. He believed as honestly, as fanatically in the right to hold slaves as did his father in the faith of the Covenanters. To-day one reads his arguments in favor of slavery with the most curious interest. His appeal to the humanity of his reader, to his heart, to his sense of justice, to his fear of God, and to his belief in the Holy Bible not to abolish slavery, but to continue it, to this generation is as amusing as the topsy-turvyisms of Gilbert or Shaw. But to the young man himself slavery was a sacred institution, intended for the betterment of mankind, a God-given benefit to the black man and a God-given right of his white master.

White brothers in the South, with perhaps less exalted motives, contributed funds to fit out Walker’s expedition, and in October, 1852, with forty-five men, he landed at Cape St. Lucas, at the extreme point of Lower California. Lower California, it must be remembered, in spite of its name, is not a part of our California, but then was, and still is, a part of Mexico. The fact that he was at last upon the soil of the enemy caused Walker to throw off all pretence; and instead of hastening to protect women and children, he sailed a few miles farther up the coast to La Paz. With his forty-five followers he raided the town, made the Governor a prisoner, and established a republic with himself as President. In a proclamation he declared the people free of the tyranny of Mexico. They had no desire to be free, but Walker was determined, and, whether they liked it or not, they woke up to find themselves an independent republic. A few weeks later, although he had not yet set foot there, Walker annexed on paper the State of Sonora, and to both States gave the name of the Republic of Sonora.

As soon as word of this reached San Francisco, his friends busied themselves in his behalf, and the danger-loving and adventurous of all lands were enlisted as “emigrants” and shipped to him in the bark Anita.

Two months later, in November, 1852, three hundred of these joined Walker. They were as desperate a band of scoundrels as ever robbed a sluice, stoned a Chinaman, or shot a “Greaser.” When they found that to command them there was only a boy, they plotted to blow up the magazine in which the powder was stored, rob the camp, and march north, supporting themselves by looting the ranches. Walker learned of their plot, tried the ringleaders by court-martial, and shot them. With a force as absolutely undisciplined as was his, the act required the most complete personal courage. That was a quality the men with him could fully appreciate. They saw they had as a leader one who could fight, and one who would punish. The majority did not want a leader who would punish so when Walker called upon those who would follow him to Sonora to show their hands, only the original forty-five and about forty of the later recruits remained with him. With less than one hundred men he started to march up the Peninsula through Lower California, and so around the Gulf to Sonora.

From the very start the filibusters were overwhelmed with disaster. The Mexicans, with Indian allies, skulked on the flanks and rear. Men who in the almost daily encounters were killed fell into the hands of the Indians, and their bodies were mutilated. Stragglers and deserters were run to earth and tortured. Those of the filibusters who were wounded died from lack of medical care. The only instruments they possessed with which to extract the arrow-heads were probes made from ramrods filed to a point. Their only food was the cattle they killed on the march. The army was barefoot, the Cabinet in rags, the President of Sonora wore one boot and one shoe.

Unable to proceed farther, Walker fell back upon San Vincente, where he had left the arms and ammunition of the deserters and a rear-guard of eighteen men. He found not one of these to welcome him. A dozen had deserted, and the Mexicans had surprised the rest, lassoing them and torturing them until they died. Walker now had but thirty-five men. To wait for further re-enforcements from San Francisco, even were he sure that re-enforcements would come, was impossible. He determined by forced marches to fight his way to the boundary line of California. Between him and safety were the Mexican soldiers holding the passes, and the Indians hiding on his flanks. When within three miles of the boundary line, at San Diego, Colonel Melendrez, who commanded the Mexican forces, sent in a flag of truce, and offered, if they would surrender, a safe-conduct to all of the survivors of the expedition except the chief. But the men who for one year had fought and starved for Walker, would not, within three miles of home, abandon him.

Melendrez then begged the commander of the United States troops to order Walker to surrender. Major McKinstry, who was in command of the United States Army Post at San Diego, refused. For him to cross the line would be a violation of neutral territory. On Mexican soil he would neither embarrass the ex-President of Sonora nor aid him; but he saw to it that if the filibusters reached American soil, no Mexican or Indian should follow them.

Accordingly, on the imaginary boundary he drew up his troop, and like an impartial umpire awaited the result. Hidden behind rocks and cactus, across the hot, glaring plain, the filibusters could see the American flag, and the gay, fluttering guidons of the cavalry. The sight gave them heart for one last desperate spurt. Melendrez also appreciated that for the final attack the moment had come. As he charged, Walker, apparently routed, fled, but concealed in the rocks behind him he had stationed a rear-guard of a dozen men. As Melendrez rode into this ambush the dozen riflemen emptied as many saddles, and the Mexicans and Indians stampeded. A half hour later, footsore and famished, the little band that had set forth to found an empire of slaves, staggered across the line and surrendered to the forces of the United States.

Of this expedition James Jeffrey Roche says, in his “Byways of War,” which is of all books published about Walker the most intensely and fascinatingly interesting and complete: “Years afterward the peon herdsman or prowling Cocupa Indian in the mountain by-paths stumbled over the bleaching skeleton of some nameless one whose resting-place was marked by no cross or cairn, but the Colts revolver resting beside his bones spoke his country and his occupation—the only relic of the would-be conquistadores of the nineteenth century.”

Under parole to report to General Wood, commanding the Department of the Pacific, the filibusters were sent by sailing vessel to San Francisco, where their leader was tried for violating the neutrality laws of the United States, and acquitted.