William Walker’s Wars: How One Man’s Private American Army Tried to Conquer Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras

368 Pages·2018·7.28 MB·English

by  Scott Martelle

Copyright © 2019 by Scott Martelle
All rights reserved
Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 978-1-61373732-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Martelle, Scott, 1958– author.
Title: William Walker’s wars : how one man’s private American army tried to
conquer Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras / Scott Martelle.
Description: Chicago, Illinois : Chicago Review Press Incorporated, [2019] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018009571 (print) | LCCN 2018033295 (ebook) | ISBN
9781613737309 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781613737316 (kindle) | ISBN
9781613737323 (epub) | ISBN 9781613737293 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Walker, William, 1824–1860. | Nicaragua—History—Filibuster
War, 1855–1860. | Filibusters—Nicaragua—Biography. | Filibusters—United
States—Biography. | Americans—Nicaragua—History—19th century.
Classification: LCC F1526.27.W3 (ebook) | LCC F1526.27.W3 M37 2019 (print) |
DDC 972.85/044092 [B] —dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009571
Typesetting: Nord Compo
Map design: Chris Erichsen
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.
For the lovely Margaret, as always,
and for Rochelle Lewis Lavin,
a dear friend and fighter of great courage
C
ONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Prologue - Trujillo, Honduras, August 21, 1860
1 - Nashville
2 - New Orleans, and Ellen
3 - A Journalism Career Begins
4 - San Francisco
5 - The Republic of Sonora Rises
6 - The Republic of Sonora Falls
7 - Why Nicaragua Mattered
8 - Walker Returns to San Francisco
9 - On to San Juan del Sur
10 - The War for Nicaragua
11 - President Walker
12 - The Opposition Forms
13 - Race, Slavery, and Walker's Empire
14 - Walker Returns to New Orleans
15 - Ruatan, Trujillo, and the End of a Dark Dream
A Note About Sources, And Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
PROLOGUE
TRUJILLO, HONDURAS, AUGUST
21, 1860
WITHIN THE STONE WALLS of the three-hundred-year-old Fortaleza de Santa
Bárbara, dozens of men, some wearing rags and blood-soaked bandages, worked
quietly in soft lamplight, their faces glistening with sweat from stress, humidity,
and fever. They struggled to bend the barrels on rifles, drive spikes into the
touchholes of cannons, and drench surplus gunpowder with water. Anything to
ensure that the weapons they’d leave behind would be worthless to whichever
enemy took over—the Honduran soldiers just beyond rifle range, or British
marines from the HMS Icarus at anchor nearby in the warm Caribbean waters.
Not all of the men were fit enough to flee, though. Bullet wounds
immobilized three of them, and illness incapacitated three others, including a
New York Herald journalist sent to write about the adventurers. A surgeon and
an aide would likewise remain behind to oversee their care in a makeshift
hospital ward created by stringing hammocks across a large room. Each of them
was given a gun and a small reserve of ammunition in case they needed to
defend themselves against an attack, but their plan was to beg mercy from
whoever arrived first.1
As the weapon wreckers worked, William Walker—a short slip of a man
with light blond hair and eerily expressionless gray eyes—moved among the
hammocks to offer thanks and final words of encouragement to the sick and the
wounded. Even though they were Walker’s men—his soldiers, really—he barely
knew most of them. But one, Colonel Thomas Henry, had been a close confidant
and strategic adviser, and Walker spent a few extra minutes with him, speaking
softly into his ear above the gaping, maggoty wound where his jaw had been
shot away. Walker asked whether Henry had uncovered any information that
would help them track down José Trinidad Cabañas, the former Honduran
president now waging an insurrection against the current government. Henry,
numbed by morphine, scrawled an answer on a piece of paper: Cabañas would
be found somewhere along the Río Negro (now the Río Seco), about forty miles
east of Trujillo. Walker whispered a few more words, then rushed the visit to an
end.2
The weapons sabotaged and a path forward determined, Walker ordered his
remaining men—about seventy of them in various states of health and strength
—to gather on the fort’s parade grounds. Showing unusual discipline for such a
ragtag squadron, the men quietly assembled a little after midnight then followed
Walker through the ancient fort’s main gate and over empty streets before
disappearing into the jungle.3
William Walker. Mathew Brady, courtesy of Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-10802
Skulking off in the middle of the night had not been in Walker’s plans. He’d
left New Orleans nearly three months earlier expecting to take over the small
Caribbean island of Ruatan, less than fifty miles off Trujillo, at the invitation of
English residents who feared for their futures once Great Britain fulfilled a treaty
promise and turned the island over to Honduras. But Walker’s infamy preceded
him. After learning he was in the area, the British delayed the handover, leaving
the Union Jack fluttering high above the island’s main settlement, Coxen Hole.
Walker neither wanted nor could win a battle against British warships, so he
decided instead to seize Trujillo and from there invade Nicaragua, his ultimate
target all along. But that plan ran into trouble, too, with the arrival of the Icarus
and a demand from its captain that Walker and his men surrender. Instead, they
ran.
The force traveled lightly, each man bearing a rifle and 120 rounds of
ammunition, and a few also carrying sidearms and knives. Paralleling the
Caribbean coast, they made their way east through the moonless night and into
the next day, a remarkable display of stamina against August’s tropical heat and
humidity. They passed through hamlets whose residents hid from view and along
jungle paths as birds squawked and trilled and small monkeys howled and
chattered. Walker stopped them at dusk to establish a camp along the bank of a
creek, but shortly after sunrise the men forded the river and marched on. They
raided small farms but found little to eat except beef. When night fell, they again
camped, and at daybreak they resumed their flight. By midafternoon, Walker felt
they had put enough distance between themselves and Trujillo for the men to
take a lengthy rest, clean their weapons, and let some of the heat of the day
dissipate before trying to walk any farther.
As the men relaxed at a spot along a wide creek, gunfire exploded from the
underbrush, the lead balls shredding leaves and slamming into the earth, tree
trunks, and human flesh. The Americans scattered and dove for protection. Some
returned fire at the attacking Honduran soldiers as others hastily put their
weapons back together. Amid the chaos, Walker ordered the men into two small
companies, then sent them sprinting into the brush in a screaming wave of
suicidal bravado and gunfire, panicking the Hondurans into flight. But the battle
was costly. They’d spent valuable ammunition, and Walker counted one dead
and seven or eight others wounded. The commander himself was among them:
blood oozed from Walker’s creased cheek.
The men quickly packed up and moved on, carrying the severely wounded
and helping the sick. As they worked their way along the trail, occasional
harassing gunshots came from behind, one of which struck a top aide, Major
Huff, adding to the list of casualties. They reached a mahogany camp near the
coastal town of Limón that Walker was surprised to find abandoned, and soon
they were off again. Reaching the Río Negro, they found a canoe and ferried
themselves across to a trading post run by an Englishman named Dickens. There