Ultimatum of Captain Davis — Evacuation of Rivas — Statistics of the campaign — Henningsen's opinion of his men — Characteristic anecdotes — Frederick Ward — A filibuster's apotheosis.

The ultimatum of Davis, backed by the power at his command, destroyed Walker's last hope of retaining his hold in Nicaragua; this too, at a time when the tide of fortune had begun to show signs of turning. In despair of ever taking the city by assault, the Allies had sat down to besiege it, with scant patience. The formidable army of seven thousand which had invested Rivas in January had decreased within two months, through death and defection, to a comparatively small force of less than two thousand, two-thirds of them Costa Ricans and other foreigners. These were, moreover, short of powder, threatened with cholera and the rainy season, and so reduced as to be unable to man effectively the investing works, through which the American scouts penetrated freely when they pleased. With the garrison, desertion had done its worst. Walker had still with him 260 of his best fighting men, with plenty of arms and ammunition and two or three days' provisions. To cut his way through the hostile lines and reach his schooner would have been a much less difficult feat than Henningsen's evacuation of Granada. Capitulation had never been discussed or thought of by Walker, nor had Commander Davis hinted at his intention of seizing the Granada, until her possession had become of vital importance to the besieged.

The Leonese in the North had begun to murmur at the cost and misery of this prolonged, fruitless war, whose advantages, should it end favourably to the Allies, would most likely be reaped by those whom they loved no better than they did the Americans of the North. Walker, had he been allowed to embark his fighting men in safety, might expect to awaken in those old friends a new and stronger friendship, and resume the fight against the Serviles from the original point at Realejo. The possession of over a hundred prisoners, whom he could have carried with him as hostages, was a sufficient guarantee for the safety of the sick and wounded whom he would have been compelled to leave behind. Such, at least, are the arguments embodied in Henningsen's protest, and the facts conceded by all authorities justify his conclusions. But half of Walker's ammunition was on board the schooner, without which it would have been madness to attempt a change of base in presence of the enemy.

Walker, finding that Davis was firm in his determination, sent General Henningsen and Colonel Watters to meet the naval autocrat at the headquarters of the Allies and arrange terms of capitulation. An agreement was drawn up and submitted to Walker, on the 13th of April, but he declined to sign it, as it contained no provisions guaranteeing the safety in person and property of his native adherents who should have to remain in Nicaragua. Among the latter were many devoted men who had kept faithful to his fortunes throughout all, and on whom the wrath of the enemy would fall as soon as the dread filibusters should leave the country. On the next day an agreement was submitted and accepted by both parties, the provisions of which were as follows:—

Such is the text of the treaty between the representative of the United States and his captive. The lenity, unheard of before in Central American warfare, which the Allies thus offered to the men whom they had vowed to exterminate, shows how highly they valued the services of Captain Davis. That they did not keep their merciful promise to the native prisoners, but harried them in the good old-fashioned style as soon as the gallant captain had sailed away, does not detract from the merit of their promise. They would have promised anything to be rid of the troublesome filibustero.

No stipulation had been made for the surrender of the ammunition and weapons of the besieged. Henningsen, therefore, before the evacuation began, set his gunners to work destroying all the artillery and ammunition, consisting of one four-pound brass gun, three five-pounders, two twelves, and three sixes, and four light iron twelve-pound mortars, also 55,000 cartridges, 300,000 caps, and 1,500 pounds of powder; no contemptible supply of saltpetre for a garrison lacking in bread.

The total number of men surrendering was 463, including 170 sick and wounded. One hundred and two prisoners taken from the Allies were set free and sent within the enemy's lines. Forty natives who had abided with him to the end, bade their grey-eyed chieftain a sorrowful adieu on the bright May morning that was his last in Rivas.

Bravely and deliberately the filibusters marched out of the town, Walker riding at the head, with blade on thigh and pistol in belt, and the same impassive visage that he would have worn in mounting a throne or a gallows. After him, Henningsen, tall, martial, frank of face, then bearded like a whiskered Pandour, and not without traces of powder from his morning's work. Gaunt Hornsby, a Northern Quixote in face and figure, rode beside phlegmatic Bruno Von Natzmer, erst Prussian cornet of hussars and friend of Baron Bulow, until differences of national adoption set them lustily to fighting each other; more fortunate than the Costa Rican baron, he lived to fight another day; Henry and Swingle, doughty gunners; Watters—Colonel Jack—he of the relief of Granada; Williamson, West, and a dozen others, brave men and true, accompanied their leader. Other brave men and true, scores and hundreds, lay beneath the orange trees of Rivas and Granada and San Jorge, and a score of hard-fought fields, who never again might follow a filibuster's flag or awake to martial trump until that of Gabriel sounds their reveillÉ.

Walker and sixteen of his officers were to go on board the St. Mary's, thence to Panama, and home. It is a striking, and in its way, an heroic picture, that of the filibuster chief parting from his wild, wayward, but devoted comrades. First, he must say not adieu but au revoir to 250 privates and non-commissioned officers, escorted by a United States lieutenant, who curses his job, to Virgin Bay, thence homeward as circuitously as may be; also to the sad contingent of sick and wounded, homeward bound by another course; finally, he gives a look of pitying scorn upon a battalion of recreant deserters whom, for their own safety, Captain Davis must despatch to the home which yearns not for them, by yet another route.

So fared they forth from Rivas and on to their several fates; Walker to gaze from the decks of the St. Mary's at his beloved schooner Granada, now captured by Davis, as promised, and turned over, as also (privately) promised to the Costa Ricans, and commanded, not without much pomp and glory, by a Jamaico negro—horribly satirical sequel to that slavery decree which was to have regenerated Central America. Commander Davis, most respectable of naval magnates, passed from Rivas unto well-earned promotion, chiefly by dint of meritorious longevity, and died, in the fulness of time, an admiral, having achieved nothing more important in his long life than the forcible overthrow of the filibuster chief.

The "Blue, White and Blue" has floated over Nicaraguan soil for the last time, save that one brief moment when it shall flutter and fall before the "Stars and Stripes" in the port of San Juan del Norte. So many and such varying stories have been told of the number of men who fought and died under its folds, that a summary of the actual force which during twenty months held possession of a country may not be uninteresting.

It has been estimated by those who estimate by guess, that 5,000 Americans perished in Nicaragua—that is to say, five-sevenths as many Americans as were killed and wounded in the Revolutionary War. It has also been guessed that Walker had from 10,000 to 20,000 men at his command. These guesses have been gravely crystallized into history, where history has condescended to notice the subject at all. The actual records of the adjutant-general, P. R. Thompson, show that exactly 2,843 men were enlisted in all the campaigns. In addition to these, however, must be reckoned native volunteers, civilians who volunteered, and others who were impressed for temporary service—whose combined strength may have swelled the total to about 3,500.

Against them was arrayed a force, in all, of 21,000 Servile Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, Hondurans, Guatemalans and San Salvadorians, with at least 10,000 Indian auxiliaries. The Allies admitted a loss of 15,000 in all the campaigns. One-third, perhaps, of the Americans died in Nicaragua. I take the assertions of General Henningsen, in the absence of any official figures. Some estimate of their deeds may be gathered from the surgical report, which showed that the proportion of wounds treated was 137 to every hundred men. Those who did not shirk their duty must have carried away many a scar, when they were fortunate enough to carry away their lives, to average the immunity of the cowardly and the false. It is not placing the proportion too high to say that about one thousand five hundred was the number of those who were steadfast and true.

These were mostly Californians, when to be Californian meant to belong to that race of giants who had come from all parts of the earth in search of gold, and then journeyed two thousand miles further in search of adventure. Nine-tenths of them were Americans, of every rank in life, from college to prison graduates, who boasted that "California was the pick of the world, and they were the pick of California"; nor quarrelled with him who chose to put it, "California is the sink of the world, and we are the sewer of California." Young Southerners drifted to Nicaragua, as naturally as young Northerners ran away to sea. A son and a nephew of Senator Bayard ran away from school to join the filibusters, and might have added some military glory to the family name, but that Walker sent them home at the request of the American State department. Henningsen's first aid was a youth of nineteen, named Burbank, who had run away from the Virginia military institute, and would have been entitled, had he lived, to a fortune of 100,000 dollars, which in those days was esteemed wealth. A rather worthless sergeant did actually fall heir to a fortune of that amount, which he was summoned home to enjoy, but purposely missed the steamer and remained to die in Nicaragua.

All the strange, wild natures for whom even California had grown too tame, drifted naturally into the filibuster's camp. "I have heard," says Henningsen, "two greasy privates disputing over the correct reading and comparative merits of Æschylus and Euripides. I have seen a soldier on guard incessantly scribbling strips of paper, which turned out to be a finely versified translation of his dog's-eared copy of the 'Divina Commedia.'"

The same appreciative commander testifies to the invincible heroism and fortitude of those men: "I have often seen them marching with a broken or compound-fractured arm in splints, and using the other to fire the rifle or revolver. Those with a fractured thigh, or wounds which rendered them incapable of removal, often (or, rather, in early times, always) shot themselves, sooner than fall into the hands of the enemy. Such men," he adds, "do not turn up in the average of every-day life, nor do I ever expect to see their like again. I was on the Confederate side in many of the bloodiest battles of the late war; but I aver that if, at the end of that war, I had been allowed to pick five thousand of the bravest Confederate or Federal soldiers I ever saw, and could resurrect and pit against them one thousand of such men as lie beneath the orange trees of Nicaragua, I feel certain that the thousand would have scattered and utterly routed the five thousand within an hour. All military science failed, on a suddenly given field, before assailants who came on at a run, to close with their revolvers, and who thought little of charging a battery, pistol in hand." Ten men, all officers, did in the first battle of Rivas actually charge and capture a battery manned by over a hundred Costa Ricans, half of the little band being slain in the heroic feat.

Their enemies bear witness to the splendid courage of the filibusters and their indomitable sang-froid when called upon to face the fusillade which almost always awaited them if captured. Chevalier Belly tells of a filibuster captured, with a broken leg, and condemned to be shot, who curtly replied to the questions of a sympathetic person, as to why he had come to Nicaragua, whether he believed in a future state, and so forth; until losing patience at what he deemed such idle speech, he burst out: "Here, we've had enough of this fooling! If you mean to have this funeral come off bring on your mourners and let us get through with it."

Men who possessed the military genius, which upon a broader field had earned them fame and fortune, lie in unhonoured graves; because on their field bravery and skill meant only increased chances of death. Men of highest education, family, and wealth, lie beside felons and outcasts. Some survived to pursue their adventurous career in other lands, many to die in the American Civil War. One of them, Frederick Townsend Ward, descendant of straitest Puritan ancestry, a native of Salem, Massachusetts, graduated from the filibuster's school to wander over to distant China, where, the Taiping rebellion occurring in the nick of time, he entered the Imperial service, in which he presently attained to the chief command. So well did the doughty filibuster practise the lessons learned in his old school, that he soon became one of the greatest men in the Celestial kingdom, and was loaded with wealth and honours (two million dollars, it is said, of the former, but the native executors produced no assets), and might have risen to any position in that most conservative kingdom, perhaps even to the very throne and office of heaven's vice-gerent, had not an unlucky ball cut short his career at the siege of Ning-Po, and sent him to enjoy the most remarkable honours ever paid to a Yankee living or dead. For the grateful Pagans have erected two temples in his honour, and have solemnly enrolled his name among those of their country's gods. Even to this day there is kept perennially blooming over his tomb a spotless lily, emblematic of I know not what, which is constantly tended and nursed by loving hands, and shall perchance be so tended centuries to come, when Taiping and Filibuster shall have grown dim and hoary traditions in the busy, forgetful world outside the Middle Kingdom. China remembers the services of Ward. With us alter tulit honores, and an Englishman wears the glory of having suppressed the Taiping rebellion. Of a different type was the young Californian, Joaquin Miller, who has lived to embalm in heroic verse the memory of his chief—albeit, Walker, simple and severe, masquerades in a garb which he would have little yearned for or admired.

Thus the poet pictures his hero as "tall, courtly, grand as any king," with

It is grand; it is magnificent; but—it is not our Filibuster, who was more impressive in his stern simplicity.

To the more ignorant of his followers Walker's ulterior designs were naturally inexplicable. They thought that his purpose was merely that of a freebooter. Hence there arose a legend that he had amassed a mighty treasure which, like that of Captain Kidd, still lies hidden, awaiting discovery by some lucky seeker. Long years after his death the following story was told by a relative of one of the surviving filibusters, named Samuel Lyons:

"By his bravery and strategy Samuel became one of Walker's most trusted men, and he was one of the four officers who helped Walker bury his treasure. There were five mule loads of it—gold and silver, money and bullion, including a great deal which had been plundered from the churches, the chapels, and private mansions. At eleven o'clock one moonlight night Walker and four officers buried the treasure under a big tree near the brow of a hill. I have heard Samuel tell how they scraped away the leaves on the ground before they dug the pit. I have a pretty good idea of the locality myself, but he knows just where it is, and can find it even if the tree is removed. The treasure was buried just before the two final engagements which crushed the hopes of Walker. The next morning after that little moonlight excursion the first of these engagements occurred, and in it two of the officers who had seen the treasure buried were killed. After that engagement the army—if it could be called one—lived on bananas alone for two weeks in a big banana plantation, and had a hard time of it. Then came the last engagement, in which Walker, Samuel, and the rest were captured. There is only one of the four accompanying officers who is not accounted for; but as nothing was heard of him after that engagement Samuel has always believed that he was killed then or executed with the captives who met death in that way. He certainly was not with the party that so wonderfully escaped with Samuel, and who, I think, were the sole survivors of that engagement. If he be dead, or rather, if he died then, Samuel alone has the secret."

Most lovers of the marvellous would be satisfied with this delectable dish of treasure and gore, but another "survivor," with a still more able-bodied imagination, gravely corrects the first narrator, by saying:

"The writer hereof knows something of that treasure, and personally examined it, and in lieu of five mule loads, there were five tons of it. It is well known that the most horrible chapter in that most horrible of wars was the burning and pillaging of Granada by General Henningsen, under Walker's orders, in November, 1856. The churches—some twenty or more, immensely rich in plate and jewels—were secretly and systematically despoiled, and their great booty was safely stowed away on board a Lake Nicaragua steamer before the doomed city was given up to pillage. What became of that immense spoil has been a mysterious secret, and was so regarded by the filibusters at the time. It was worth millions. To allay suspicion as to its true disposition Walker gave out that it was shipped to New Orleans to be disposed of on account of his government, and that the proceeds thereof would be used in purchasing military supplies. That spoil was buried, and, to my own personal knowledge, the officer who had it in charge and commanded the squad who guarded it now lives in San Bernardino. He informs me (and we have frequently discussed the matter) that, under the immediate supervision of Walker, he and five other officers and about twenty men buried that treasure in the village of St. George, on Lake Nicaragua, under a room in the house wherein the booty was so sacredly guarded. Walker exacted the most solemn oath of secrecy, giving substantial gratuities and promising future rewards to the whole party if they would faithfully guard the secret of the hidden church-spoil of the burned city. Inside of a month the whole party who were in the secret, save my friend and informant and two or three of the officers therein engaged, were sent away on a feigned expedition; were given out as deserters; were pursued by a large party of cavalry, and, by Walker's order, shot to a man when overhauled by the pursuing party. Soon thereafter, at a desperate battle fought at St. George on January 16, 1857, the last man of the party who assisted in burying the church spoil, save my friend of San Bernardino, was killed, and in such a way as to confirm in the mind of my informant the opinion that all had been killed by Walker's order, and that the General intended to be the only custodian of the secret of the hidden treasure. Although my informant was a faithful and trusted officer, high in Walker's favour, still the prompt and tragic ending of his comrades and sharers in the dread mystery produced such an impression on his mind that he at once deserted. He carried the secret with him and yet has it, and he is the only man living who knows where the Granada booty lies hidden, and he don't know. And why not? Well, the spoil was buried in December; in January the enemy by a forced march, possessed themselves of St. George; Walker took position at Rivas, three miles distant, and, within the next three months, utterly exhausted his army in his vain endeavours to repossess himself of the insignificant village that contained this immense wealth. In the terrific conflicts that ensued the village was razed to the ground. This the writer hereof knows, because he fought through all of those engagements."

Nothing (save truth) is lacking to make this circumstantial narrative all that it should be. Like most of the improbable charges made against Walker, it emanated from his deserters, who have done more than any others to blacken his memory.