Chapter XII: The Defence of Rivas (9)

So far were the politicians of the Union from perceiving it was Walker’s policy by the slavery decree to declare his hostility to annexation, that some of them supposed they had achieved a discovery by the publication of certain letters instructing Goicouria as to the course he should pursue in England. The intendente-general was authorized by Walker to proceed to London in order to impress on the English cabinet the fact that Nicaragua had no desire for admission into the American Union; and it was supposed that he, being a Cuban, might more readily get the ear of the British Ministry on the subject than a native of the United States. The letter of Walker to Goicouria instructed him to explain that the necessities of Nicaragua required “a republic based on military principles,” such a republic being clearly unfit for admission into the northern Union. The English would readily perceive that the growth of such a republic toward the southern limits of the United States would tend to restrain the territorial extension of the latter power. Walker conceived that by such a policy he would promote the welfare of his native no less than of his adopted country; for the acquisition by the United States of any territory covered by a Spanish-American population would be fertile of troubles and dangers to the confederacy, as well as of suffering and oppression to the inhabitants of the new territory. Above all, the acquisition of territory on the south would be fatal to the slaveholding States; for it would complete the circle of free-labor communities now girdling them on almost every side.

In France it would have been easier than in England to make the anti-annexation character of the slavery decree apparent. M. Ange de St. Priest, a savant who has published a large and valuable work on the antiquities of Mexico and Central America, accepted the office of consul-general for Nicaragua at Paris; and it was hoped through him to establish relations with the Imperial government. The steady policy of Napoleon the Third has been to increase the tonnage of France, and thereby to enlarge her facilities for educating sailors. It was hoped that such a treaty might have been made as would lead to the employment of French bottoms for bringing African apprentices to the ports of Nicaragua, thus furnishing labor to the latter republic, and increasing the trade of French ships. The Emperor has himself written a work on the subject of the inter-oceanic canal through Nicaragua; and his familiarity with the country would enable him to perceive the advantages of carrying negro labor thither. Next, too, to the possession of the isthmus by France, he would desire to have the canal route in the hands of a power bound to the empire by strong ties of interest and trade.

In fact it is the decided interest of all the continental powers of Europe, to favor the policy the Americans proposed to pursue in Nicaragua. By this policy they would secure tropical products at a much cheaper price than at present; and Russia, particularly, needs a supply of such articles from a country not under the control or influence of England. Even Great Britain, if she would look beyond the immediate gains of her grasping merchants, might perceive permanent advantages from the security and order negro labor would give to Nicaragua. Now that the Crown has taken the government of India from a trading corporation, it might disdain to be moved by the narrow commercial jealousy which sacrificed Jamaica to the East India Company.

But, it may be said, England will never permit anything which looks like the revival of the African slave-trade. They, however, who watch closely the phases of British politics, know that the influence of Exeter Hall is on the wane. The frenzy of the British public against the slave-trade has exhausted itself, and men have begun to perceive that they were led into error by the benevolent enthusiasm of parsons, who knew more about Greek and Hebrew than they did about physiology or political economy, and of middle-aged spinsters, smit with the love of general humanity, though disdaining to fix their affections firmly on any objects less remote than Africa. All the arguments used by the adversaries of the slave-trade were drawn from its abuses; and the true remedy was, not to abolish but regulate the trade. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was styled “a commerce for the redemption of African captives;” and if the old name, descriptive as it is of the true character of the trade, were revived, many of the prejudices against the business would be removed.

It was the alliance of a skeptical philosophy with a purblind religious zeal which generated the opinion of Europe in regard to the African slave-trade. Confining their attention to the abuses of the system, the opponents of the trade failed to raise their eyes toward any large views of the subject. If we look at Africa in the light of universal history, we see her for more than five thousand years a mere waif on the waters of the world, fulfilling no part in its destinies, and aiding in no manner the progress of general civilization. Sunk in the depravities of fetichism, and reeking with the blood of human sacrifices, she seemed a satire on man, fit only to provoke the sneer of devils at the wisdom, and justice, and benevolence of the Creator. But America was discovered, and the European found the African a useful auxiliary in subduing the new continent to the uses and purposes of civilization. The white man took the negro from his native wastes, and teaching him the arts of life, bestowed on him the ineffable blessings of a true religion. Then only do the wisdom and excellence of the divine economy in the creation of the black race begin to appear with their full lustre. Africa is permitted to lie idle until America is discovered, in order that she may conduce to the formation of a new society in the New World. A strong, haughty race, bred to liberty in its northern island home, is sent forth with the mission to place America under the rule of free laws; but whence are these men, imbued with love of liberty and equality, to derive the counterpoise which shall prevent their liberty from degenerating into license, and their equality into anarchy or despotism? How are they, when transplanted from the rugged climate where freedom thrives to retain their precious birthright in the soft, tropical air which woos to luxury and repose? Is it not for this that the African was reserved? And is it not thus that one race secures for itself liberty with order, while it bestows on the other comfort and Christianity?

But man, ever the dupe of his vain desires, always oscillating between the extremes of opinion, and never fixed in the possession of truth, was not content with the place assigned the African in the plan of creation and of Providence. The preachers of the new gospel of equality and fraternity were not satisfied with descanting on the horrors of the middle passage, or of weeping over the miseries of men redeemed from the captivity of savage masters. If the slave-trade be criminal, slavery, which is the cause of it, should be extirpated. Therefore the trial is made on St. Domingo, and the slave, suddenly loosed from the restraints the law had put around him, goes forth to murder and destroy. Then they determine on another experiment more cautiously conducted and more narrowly watched. Slavery is abolished in Jamaica, and forthwith the island goes to waste. The time seems to be approaching when man, guided by a less vain philosophy, will seek truth in some other direction than Haytian massacres or Jamaican impoverishment.

If the views above expressed of the uses of the African in the economy of nature and Providence be correct, slavery is not abnormal to American society. It must be the rule, not the exception. But to keep it so requires effort and labor. The enemies of the only original form of American civilization are many and powerful. They are resolute in their determination not merely to limit but to extirpate slavery. The man who leads the free-labor myriads of the United States—he, whose firm will and far-reaching mind do not quail either at the doctrines or the acts to which his political philosophy logically conducts him, has already declared that he hopes to see the time when the foot of not a slave shall press the continent. Yet the sluggards of slavery say, “a little more rest, a little more folding of the arms to slumber.” Strafford sleeps though the axe of the headsman is whetted for his execution.

The contest between free and slave labor in the United States not only touches the interests and destiny of those immediately engaged in the struggle but it affects the fate of the whole continent. The question involved is whether the civilization of the western world shall be European or American. If free labor prevails in its effort to banish slave labor from the continent, the history of American society becomes a faint reflex of European systems and prejudices, without contributing any new ideas, any new sentiments, or any new institutions, to the mental and moral wealth of the world. The necessary consequence of the triumph of free labor will be the destruction, by a slow and cruel process, of the colored races which now inhabit the central and southern portions of the continent. The labor of the inferior races cannot compete with that of the white race unless you give it a white master to direct its energies; and without such protection as slavery affords, the colored races must inevitably succumb in the struggle with white labor. Hence a Nicaraguan can not be an indifferent spectator of the contest between the two forms of labor in the United States; and deeper yet must be his interest in the matter if born and educated in a slave State of the Union, he revolves in his mind the results which will ensue to the home of his childhood, and the firesides of the friends of his youth, in case victory smiles upon the soldiers of free labor. Do not, therefore, men of the South, deem it the voice of a stranger, or of one without a stake in your country’s welfare, which urges you to strike a blow in defence of your honor, no less than of your hearths and your families, ere the blast of the enemy’s bugle calls upon you to surrender your arms to an overwhelming force.

The tongue of truth and friendship is not that of undue praise or fawning flattery, and the soft songs of the suitor too often woo to danger and destruction. Therefore, be not displeased, sons of the South—for it is to you I now speak—if the criticism on your acts and policy appear harsh or severe; but examine your conduct and that of your public servants for the last three years and see whither it has led you. It is now but little more than three years since you elected the President of your choice, and in your simplicity you thought this success a great victory. What fruits have you reaped from it? Where are the rewards of your campaign? In what triumphs of policy have all your toils and all your efforts ended?

Your President—for he is the work of your hands—went into office pledged to your policy in Kansas and in Central America. He attempted to deceive you in Kansas, and your leaders drove him to the course he was forced to pursue. Like sheep to the slaughter he and his Northern friends were led to the support of Southern policy in Kansas; but what has resulted from their sacrifice, or from all the efforts the Southern leaders made to drag them to the altar? Was Kansas admitted into the Union? Did you have even the empty pleasure of boasting over a barren victory? The Kansas contest was made, as all admitted, for an abstract right. Your leaders were true to you, because you were true to yourselves, when contending for an “abstract right”; let us see whether you and they were equally faithful to your honor and your interests when contending for a right not abstract.

The President was pledged to your policy in Central America even more explicitly than to your Kansas measures. The resolutions of the Cincinnati Convention on the Central American policy were drawn by no trembling or unsteady hand.[2] They were not couched in the Delphic sentences behind which timid politicians shrink when they seek the support of their constituents. Clear, distinct, and unmistakeable, they could not be read in a dozen senses by the jugglers, who fancy all political wisdom consists in deceiving the people with words which seem other than they are. Have the pledges given at Cincinnati been redeemed? Have those words, so full of meaning and of resolution, taken shape in acts; or have they died into the sobs and sighs and moans of a party which aspired to greatness yet dared not its accomplishment?

It needs no new word to tell you how basely the pledges made at Cincinnati have been violated. It was not enough to trample under foot the promises made, in the name of a party, to the country; it was necessary also to disregard all the principles of public law, and to proclaim before the world that the end justified the means. Violated faith excused violated law: and when the message of the President, excusing the acts of Commodore Paulding at Punta Arenas, in December, 1857, was sent to the senate, Mr. Seward might well say, in a double sense, that his Excellency had become a convert to the “higher law” doctrine.

And how did the leaders of the South act in the emergency? It was just at the time the news of Paulding’s act at Punta Arenas reached Washington that the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution was ascertained. Then the President besought the men who were driving him on the Kansas question not to press him on the Central American policy, and the Southern leaders, giving up the substance, fled in pursuit of the shadow.[3] The Lecompton Constitution would not give another foot of soil to slavery, and the movement in Nicaragua might give it an empire; yet the latter was sacrificed to the former, and the insults of Paulding and the President have gone unrebuked by the South up to the present time.

Is it not time for the South to cease the contest for abstractions and to fight for realities? Of what avail is it to discuss the right to carry slaves into the territories of the Union, if there are none to go thither? These are questions for schoolmen—fit to sharpen the logical faculty and to make the mind quick and keen in the perception of analogies and distinctions; but surely they are not such questions as touch practical life and come home to men’s interests and actions. The feelings and conscience of a people are not to be called forth by the subtleties of lawyers or the differences of metaphysicians; nor can their energies be roused into action for the defence of rights none of them care to exercise. The minds of full-grown men cannot be fed on mere discussions of territorial rights: they require some substantial policy which all can understand and appreciate.

Nor is it wise for the weaker party to waste its strength in fighting for shadows. It is only the stronger party which can afford to throw away its force on indecisive skirmishes. At present the South must husband her political power else she will soon lose all she possesses. The same influence she brought to bear in favor of the position she took in Kansas would have secured the establishment of the Americans in Nicaragua. And unless she assumes now an entirely defensive attitude, what else is left for the South except to carry out the policy proposed to her three years ago in Central America? How else can she strengthen slavery than by seeking its extension beyond the limits of the Union? The Republican party aims at destroying slavery by sap and not by assault. It declares now that the task of confining slavery is complete and the work of the miner has already commenced. Whither can the slaveholder fly when the enemy has completed his chambers and filled in the powder and prepared the train, and stands with lighted match ready to apply the fire?

Time presses. If the South wishes to get her institutions into tropical America she must do so before treaties are made to embarrass her action and hamper her energies. Already there is a treaty between Mexico and Great Britain by which the former agrees to do all in her power for the suppression of the slave-trade, and in 1856 a clause was inserted in the Dallas-Clarendon Convention, stipulating for the perpetual exclusion of slavery from the Bay Islands of Honduras. This clause was suggested (as the writer was informed by the person himself who proposed it) by an American, for the purpose of securing the support of England to a projected railway across Honduras; and thus the rights of American civilization were to be bartered away for the paltry profits of a railroad company. And while Nicaragua was to be hemmed in by an anti-slavery treaty between England and Honduras on the north, Costa Rica made an agreement with New Granada that slavery should never be introduced within her limits. The enemies of American civilization—for such are the enemies of slavery—seem to be more on the alert than its friends.

The faith which Walker had in the intelligence of the Southern States to perceive their true policy and in their resolution to carry it out, was one of the causes which led to the publication of the decree of the 22d of September at the time it was given forth. Nor is his faith in the South shaken; though who can fail to be amazed at the facility with which the South is carried off after chimeras? Sooner or later, however, the slaveholding States are bound to come as one man to the support of the Nicaraguan policy. The decree of the 22d September, not the result of hasty passion or immature thought, fixed the fate of Nicaragua and bound the Republic to the car of American civilization. For more than two years the enemies of slavery have been contriving and plotting to exclude the naturalized Nicaraguans from their adopted country. But as yet not a single additional barrier has been interposed; and the South has but to resolve upon the task of carrying slavery into Nicaragua in order that the work may be accomplished.

If other appeals than those of interest are required for stimulating the Southern States in the effort to re-establish slavery in Central America they are not lacking. The hearts of Southern youth answer to the call of honor, and strong arms and steady eyes are waiting to carry forward the policy which is now the dictate of duty as well as of interest. The issue between slavery and anti-slavery has been made in Nicaragua, and it is impossible for slavery to retire from the contest without losing some of its courage and character. Nor is the issue one of mere words. It is not a tilt of sport, a joust of reeds; but the knights have touched the shields of their adversaries with the points of their lances, and the tourney is one of mortal strife. And may fortune most favor them who best do their duty in the fray.

Something is due from the South to the memory of the brave dead who repose in the soil of Nicaragua. In defence of slavery these men left their homes, met with calmness and constancy the perils of a tropical climate, and finally yielded up their lives for the interests of the South. I have seen these men die in many ways. I have seen them gasping life away under the effects of typhus; I have seen them convulsed in the death agony from the fearful blows of cholera; I have seen them sink to glorious rest from mortal wounds received on honorable fields; but I never saw the first man who repented engaging in the cause for which he yielded his life. These martyrs and confessors in the cause of Southern civilization surely deserve recognition at its hands. And what can be done for their memories while the cause for which they suffered and died remains in peril and jeopardy?

If there, then, be yet vigor in the South—and who can doubt that there is—for further contest with the soldiers of anti-slavery, let her cast off the lethargy which enthrals her, and prepare anew for the conflict. But at the same time she throws aside her languor and indifference, let her, taught by the past, discard the delusions and abstractions with which politicians have agitated her passions without advancing her interests. It is time for slavery to spend its efforts on realities and not beat the air with wanton and ill-advised blows. The true field for the exertion of slavery is in tropical America; there it finds the natural seat of its empire and thither it can spread if it will but make the effort, regardless of conflicts with adverse interests. The way is open and it only requires courage and will to enter the path and reach the goal. Will the South be true to herself in this emergency?

Chapter Ninth.

THE ADVANCE OF THE ALLIES.

In the beginning of September, 1856, the army of Nicaragua was organized in two battalions of Rifles, two of Light Infantry, one of Rangers, and a small company of Artillery. The First Rifles was the fullest as well as the best corps of the army, and it scarcely mustered two hundred effective men. The Second Rifles was a mere shadow of a battalion, and its discipline was almost entirely neglected. The Light Infantry battalions were larger than the Second Rifles, and some companies of these, as, for example, the company of Capt. Henry, of the Second Infantry, were in good order and condition. The Rangers consisted of three small companies, under the command of Major Waters, and were capable of effective service. Capt. Schwartz, with a few artillerymen, had shown capacity for organizing his corps, and possessed knowledge in his profession, he having served for some time as an artillery officer in Baden during the revolutionary troubles of 1848. The whole effective force scarcely amounted to eight hundred men.

Gen. Hornsby was in command of the Meridional Department, having his headquarters sometimes at San Jorge, sometimes at Rivas, and sometimes at San Juan del Sur. He had with him some companies of the First Infantry and the artillery squad—it could scarcely be called a company—of Capt. Schwartz. The First Rifles were at Granada, while the Second Rifles, under Lieut.-Col. McDonald, were at Tipitapa. The Second Infantry were at Masaya, and, in the absence of Col. Jaquess, it was commanded by Lieut.-Col. McIntosh. Capt. Dolan had been in command of a company of Rifles at Managua, but about the middle of September, Major Waters was sent thither with his Rangers. The principal depot of commissary, quartermaster, and ordnance stores, and all the work-shops of the army, were at Granada. The San Juan river was guarded by two companies of infantry, and Lieut.-Col. Rudler was placed in charge of that frontier.

The main strength of the enemy was at Leon, under the orders of Gen. Belloso, and in the month of August Martinez began to collect men in Matagalpa, and even as far down as Chocoyas and Trinidad. The troops under Belloso were kept closely about Leon, and Rangers from Managua were in the habit of scouting beyond Pueblo Nuevo without meeting any signs of the enemy. Martinez, however, was collecting the herdsmen and servants attached to the Legitimist owners of cattle-estates in the upper part of Chontales and Los Llaños, and these being familiar with the country were easily able to provide their chief with any news in that region of country. A large proportion of the cattle used by the Americans was drawn from these districts, and they were generally driven to Granada by native officers, accompanied by small detachments of riflemen mounted for the occasion. One of the most efficient of these native officers was Ubaldo Herrera, whose services during the civil war have been heretofore related.

In the latter part of August, Herrera, with a few Americans, was sent to one of the cattle-estates of Los Llaños, and while carelessly driving cattle toward Tipitapa he was attacked and slain by a small band of Legitimists. This incident occurred not many miles from Tipitapa, and in consequence of it Lieut.-Col. McDonald received orders to cross the Tipitapa river, and marching toward Los Llaños, to ascertain whether any traces of the enemy were to be seen in that direction. The roads were, at the time, difficult, and all movements were necessarily slow and uncertain, owing to the heavy rains of the season. McDonald, however, with Capt. Jarvis, and about forty men, proceeded in the direction of San Jacinto, a large cattle-estate a few miles east and north of Tipitapa. It was reported that some of the enemy were quartered at the country-house belonging to the estate, and McDonald, arriving near the house before daybreak, postponed a nearer approach until he might be able to see the strength of the enemy. Soon after daylight he drew up his force for an attack, but while proceeding at a quick pace he was received by such a sharp, steady fire that he deemed it prudent to withdraw. Capt. Jarvis was brought off mortally wounded, and McDonald had ascertained that the enemy were in larger numbers than he expected, and strongly barricaded behind adobes.

The presence of the enemy at San Jacinto was a serious inconvenience to the commissariat, and when it was known at Granada there were numerous volunteers who proposed to drive the Legitimists from the house they occupied. The state of the roads made it almost impossible to send artillery against San Jacinto, even had there been the round shot or shell requisite for rendering a gun useful in an attack on adobes. There was a general impression at Granada that McDonald’s Rifles had retired too soon, and the impression was due to the utter want of discipline in the corps. Seeing the enthusiasm of some officers and citizens, and desirous of ascertaining more exactly the strength of the enemy beyond Tipitapa, Walker consented that volunteers should be engaged for an attack on San Jacinto.

The volunteers were principally Americans who had been in the army, and who had been discharged or had resigned; and these had their numbers swelled to about sixty-five or seventy by the officers at Granada and Masaya. Among the officers who joined the expedition were Major J. C. O’Neal, Captains Watkins, Lewis, and Morris, and Lieutenants Brady, Connor, Crowell, Hutchins, Kiel, Reader and Sherman. They left Granada on the afternoon of the 12th of September, and passing through Masaya reached Tipitapa on the morning of the 13th. At Tipitapa they offered the command of the party to Lieutenant-Colonel Byron Cole, who had been visiting several points in Chontales with a view of procuring cattle for the army, and Cole agreed to accept the offer. Wiley Marshall, a citizen of Granada, was named as second in command. The spirit of adventure which controlled not only these men but many others in Nicaragua can be judged of by the fact that under this improvised organization Major O’Neal consented to receive orders from a simple citizen, Marshall.

Cole and his command arrived before San Jacinto about 5 o’clock, on the morning of Sunday the 14th of September. They found the house well situated for defence on a gentle elevation commanding all the ground about it. Near the house was a corral, the sides of which afforded protection against rifle or musket balls. Cole halted a few minutes to arrange his plan of attack; and dividing his small force into three bodies, placed the first in charge of Robert Milligan, an ex-lieutenant of the army, the second under Major O’Neal, and the third under Captain Watkins. The attack on the enemy was to be made at three several points, and the weapons to be used principally were revolvers. These arrangements being made, the order to charge simultaneously the points assigned to each division was given. The order was gallantly obeyed, and Cole with Marshall and Milligan had already gained the corral when they were struck down by the well-directed fire of the enemy. O’Neal was more fortunate, receiving only a wound in the arm, while Watkins was disabled by a shot in the hip. Thus, almost at the same instant, and when the men were within a few rods of the house, all of the leaders and nearly one third of the whole force were either killed or wounded. Then the others, seeing nothing was to be accomplished with their numbers, withdrew, carrying off their wounded; and in a few minutes they were in full retreat toward Tipitapa.

Thus in the bold but fruitless charge he made on San Jacinto perished Byron Cole, whose energy and perseverance had done so much toward securing the presence of the Americans in Nicaragua. It was the first opportunity he had for being under fire; and he had scarcely seen the flash of an enemy’s musket before he met his fate. For months preceding the arrival of the Americans at Realejo, he had travelled and toiled in their behalf; and the only reward of all his labor and anxiety was death on the first field where he met the foe of the principles he had aided to advance. Nor was Cole the only loss of note on that fatal day. Marshall died of his wounds after reaching Tipitapa; and among the missing was Charles Callahan, who had been appointed collector of customs at Granada. The latter was correspondent of the New-Orleans Picayune newspaper, and his genial nature secured for him a large circle of friends who regretted his untimely loss. The thirst for action led him to exchange his business in Granada for the excitement of the attack on San Jacinto; and he never returned to fill the duties he had so well begun a few weeks previously.

The retreat of the volunteers from San Jacinto was irregular and disorderly; and on such a command as that of McDonald at Tipitapa the arrival of the defeated party had an alarming effect. So great was the panic that the bridge across the river was torn up to prevent the expected enemy from using it. But no enemy appeared and the alarm gradually subsided. The news, however, of the defence at San Jacinto encouraged the Allies greatly; and soon after the news of the affair reached Leon, Belloso, urged on by some of the more resolute of his officers, determined to advance toward Granada.

A few days after the affair at San Jacinto, about two hundred men arrived at Granada from New-York for the Nicaraguan service. They were soon organized into companies; but they showed from the beginning how worthless they were for military duty. A very large proportion of them were Europeans of the poorest class, mostly Germans who cared more for the contents of their haversacks than of their cartridge-boxes. With the exception of Captain Russell and Lieutenants Nagle and Northedge, the officers were as trifling as the men; and these New-York volunteers, as they called themselves, had not been in the country ten days before they began to desert in numbers. The promise of free quarters and rations seemed to have carried the most of them to Nicaragua; and the idea of performing duty could scarcely have entered their minds when they left the United States. Of course such trash as these men proved to be were far worse than no men at all; for their vices and corruptions tainted the good materials near them.

While these recruits were arriving at Granada, Belloso, having received reinforcements from San Salvador and Guatemala, was marching from Leon toward Managua with a force of about eighteen hundred men. He was accompanied by General Zavala, the second in command of the Guatemalan officers, Paredes remaining sick at Leon. Jerez also followed the allied camp; nor was he unattended by such Leoneses as Mendez and Olivas, eager for any disorder which held out the prospect of plunder. Valle, having ventured back to the Occidental Department after the June changes, with the view of raising the people against the Rivas authority, was arrested and afterward kept under the eye of the police. He waited at Chinandega hoping for the turn in affairs which might render his presence there useful to the Americans. By remaining in the Occidental Department he aided to keep the people of that region from joining in the crusade the Allies preached against the “filibusters.”

Major Waters watched closely the advance of the Allies, and by the firm front he showed at Managua delayed them for several days on the road between that place and Leon. When, however, Belloso approached within a few miles of Managua Waters received orders to fall back to Masaya. At the latter place, Lieutenant-Colonel McIntosh was commanding, and the garrison consisted of about two hundred and fifty men; these had been increased in numbers, though not much in strength, by the Second Rifles from Tipitapa. Subsistence for many days was collected at Masaya, and the commandant began to build barricades and other defences near the main square of the city. While these works were going on, Captain Henry, who had been confined to his bed for many weeks from a painful wound received in a duel, came out, and by the skill he evinced inspired the soldiers with confidence in his judgment and sagacity. The commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel McIntosh, was sadly deficient both in knowledge and force of character; and the effect of his irresolution was such that it was clear the force at Masaya could not be depended on for holding the town against the advancing enemy. Had Henry been in command the condition of the garrison would have been far different; and it was unfortunate that his long confinement had prevented his capacity from being known until the last moment. As will be seen hereafter, his disposition to get into danger, kept him on the list of wounded nearly the whole time he was in Nicaragua. During the war in Central America, there was no better soldier engaged in it than Henry; and by reading and study, as well as by practice and habit, he was familiar, not only with the details of military administration, but also with the deeper and more difficult principles of the art of war.

After halting a short time at Managua, Belloso continued to advance; and at Nindiri, a league from Masaya, he was joined by Martinez and his followers from Chontales and Matagalpa, thus swelling the allied force to twenty-two or twenty-three hundred men. The moral condition of the command at Masaya was such that McIntosh received orders to retire on Granada; and the state of his men may be judged from the manner in which they left Masaya. Such was the haste and confusion that Capt. Henry was left behind, and his safety was the result of accident, being due to the good-will of the women who attended him during his illness. A brass six-pounder was left on the road, about three miles out of Masaya, and the enemy afterward got possession of it. McIntosh might have been deliberate, even slow in his movement with entire safety; for Belloso did not enter Masaya for some hours after it was abandoned by the Americans.

Walker, had he desired it, might probably have prevented for a time, or at least much embarrassed the junction of Martinez with Belloso. But a war against scattered guerillas was more exhausting to the Americans than a contest with the enemy gathered in masses. The Allies were less formidable when united than when acting in detached bodies at several distant points. Hence, no obstacle was put in the way of Martinez in his march toward Belloso. In fact, the best manner of treating a revolutionary movement in Central America, is to treat it as a boil, let it come to a head, and then lance it, letting all the bad matter out at once. It was an object for the Americans to let all the dissatisfied elements in Nicaragua gather about the Allied force, so that the question at issue might be decisively determined. The accession of Martinez really added little, if any, to Belloso’s military strength.

Meanwhile the force in Granada was increased by the arrival, on the 4th of October, of Col. Sanders, with Capt. Ewbanks, and about seventy recruits from California. Three days after, Col. John Allan landed with nearly one hundred fresh men; and at the same time two twelve-pound mountain howitzers, with a small supply of shells, and four hundred Minié rifles were received from New-York. By some blunder, however, the carriages of the howitzers did not accompany them; and several days elapsed before Capt. Schwartz was able to have temporary carriages prepared. The arrival of the howitzers and shells had been anxiously expected, since it was hoped with their aid to drive the enemy more readily from the towns they were in the habit of barricading with adobes, thus making it difficult to carry them by assault, unless with the loss of large numbers of men.

General Hornsby, with his command, was ordered from the Meridional Department to Granada; and thus nearly the whole force of the Republic was concentrated at this point. The effective strength was about a thousand men, including those employed in the several departments of the army, as well as those in the line. A very large proportion of these, however, were newly arrived in the country; many of them had no military training whatever and still more had never seen an enemy during the whole course of their lives. Nevertheless it was necessary to strike a blow at the Allies, if for no other purpose than to show them that the Americans were not thrown entirely on the defensive. Accordingly, as soon as the howitzers were mounted on their rather clumsy carriages, and the new men, suitably armed and equipped, were distributed in the several corps, orders were issued for a march.

On the morning of the 11th October, Walker marched to Masaya with about 800 men. It was near midday when the First Rifles formed in the Jalteva and thence proceeded along the middle road to Masaya. In advance of the Rifles was Major Waters, with two companies of Rangers, and in their rear was the Cuban body-guard of the general-in-chief. Next after the guard came Capt. Schwartz with the howitzers; then the ammunition mules. The Second Rifles followed; and after them were the two Infantry battalions, under command of Gen. Hornsby. A small body of Rangers brought up the rear. The march was quiet and uninterrupted; and a little after nine o’clock in the evening the force encamped on the edge of the town of Masaya, occupying the high ground flanking each side of the Granada road as it enters by the plazuela of San Sebastian. Some irregular firing took place during the night, between mounted scouts of the enemy and some of the American pickets, but the skirmishing was slight and unimportant. Soon after daybreak on the 12th, Capt. Schwartz threw a few shells into the plazuela of San Sebastian, and then Capt. Dolan, with his company of rifles, proceeded at a brisk pace, to occupy the square, finding it entirely abandoned by the enemy. Belloso had withdrawn his whole force into the houses near and around the main Plaza; and the mouths of all the streets leading into the large square were strongly barricaded. After the main body of Nicaraguans had reached the plazuela of San Sebastian, a few sappers and miners who had been hastily organized by a civil engineer, Capt. Hesse, were ordered to cut through the walls of the houses on both sides of the main street leading from the plazuela to the Plaza. Hesse worked quite vigorously, supported by the Rifles on the right side of the street and by the Infantry on the left. From time to time Capt. Schwartz tried to throw shells into the midst of the main Plaza, but the fuses were too short-timed, and the shells, for the most part, burst in the air. Besides the unfitness of the fuses, one of the howitzers was dismounted after a few discharges, and the carriage of the other was ill-adapted for its purposes.

The Rifles and Infantry, however, preceded by the working party, steadily advanced toward the Plaza, sometimes encountering the enemy in their progress through the houses, and always driving them back. Capt. Leonard, with Capts. McChesney and Stith, were the foremost and most active among the Rifles; while on the left of the street, Dreux, of the Infantry, took and kept the lead. By dark the houses fronting on the Plaza were all that divided the Americans from the enemy; and then the men, tired out by their labors of the day were obliged to suspend work until morning. In the meanwhile, also, the Rangers on the Granada road reported heavy firing in the direction of the lake, and it became necessary to ascertain the meaning of it. Col. Fisher, the quartermaster-general, accompanied by Lieut.-Col. Lainé and Major Rogers, with an escort of Rangers, was sent to Granada in order to procure some stores, and also to ascertain whether or not the road was clear of the enemy. Not long after midnight Rogers returned, with the report that the enemy had attacked Granada, and were occupying much of the town, with the hope of getting entire possession of the place.

It seems that when Zavala, who, with his Guatemalans and some Legitimists, was occupying Diriomo, a small village between Masaya and Nandaime, heard of Walker’s march from Granada, he determined to attack that place, supposing it to be left entirely defenceless. Gen. Fry had, however, command at Granada; and although the regular force under his orders was small, the citizens of the town, and the civil employees of the government, brought the number of the Americans to about two hundred. The force of Zavala was not less than seven hundred when he entered the town, and it was probably swelled to nine hundred before the morning of the 13th. Among his followers was a renegade named Harper, who, in the previous April, had fled from Granada to join the Costa Ricans, because his known character of pardoned convict from the California penitentiary had prevented him from securing the position he expected in the Nicaraguan army.

When Walker heard of the attack on Granada he immediately ordered his whole force to prepare for marching, and early on the morning of the 13th he was proceeding with rapid steps to the relief of Fry and his little garrison. Not long after nine o’clock, A.M., the returning Americans heard frequent volleys of small arms in the town; and, on approaching the Jalteva, they found a strong body of the enemy, with a small brass gun, occupying both sides of the barricaded road. Colonel Markham, with the First Infantry, was in advance; and the fire of the Allies was so sharp and well-directed that, for a time, it arrested the progress of the Infantry. In a few minutes, however, the Americans were brought to a charge, and then the enemy disappeared, scattering in all directions and leaving their gun behind them. Then the main body of the Nicaraguan force proceeded rapidly toward the main Plaza, where they saw their flag yet flying, and the town was soon cleared of the Allies. Zavala left another piece, besides the one taken at the Jalteva, behind him: and the streets were strewn with the bodies of his dead. Several prisoners of rank and some wounded remained in the hands of the Nicaraguans.

After Walker reached the Plaza, he ascertained that Zavala had attacked the town early the day before, and that the little garrison had been fighting the Allies for nearly twenty-four hours. The citizens of the place acted with commendable courage, and some of them received wounds they will carry to their graves in defence of their new homes. Major Angus Gillis, acting recorder of the Oriental Department, had gone to Nicaragua to revenge the death of a noble son who fell fighting at Rivas on the eleventh of April; and while with all the vigor of youth he was acting against the hated foe which had robbed him of his son, he received a severe and painful wound in the face, injuring permanently the sight of one eye, if not of both. John Tabor, the editor of the _Nicaraguense_, had his thigh broken while defending his right to print and publish his opinions in Central America. Douglass J. Wilkins had defended the hospital, threatened almost every instant with assault, and he had infused something of his own unquailing spirit into the weak and wasted forms of those stretched on the beds and gathered up in the hammocks of the several wards. The officers, too, attached to the several departments of the army had been very serviceable in repulsing the attacks of the Allies. Colonel Jones, paymaster-general, had directed the defence of the government house on the corner of the Plaza; while Major Potter, of the ordnance, was serviceable at many points, and particularly at the guard-house near the church. It was on this occasion, too, that Captain Swingle first displayed the skill and courage which made him so useful in future operations.

Nor did those, whose usual avocation was to preach peace, deem it unworthy of their profession to strike a blow in defence of a cause reviled and persecuted of men, but just and sacred in the eyes of those familiar with the facts of the contest. It may not appear singular that the judge of the Court of First Instance, Thomas Basye, used his rifle in defence of the authority by which he held his commission; but the conduct of Father Rossiter, a Catholic priest who had lately been appointed chaplain of the army, is more likely to attract attention and inquiry. But when we ascertain the acts of the Allies on their entrance to the town, it will not surprise us to see even a priest of the church arm in defence, from the attacks of those who acted like savages. This brings us to some incidents which occurred during the attack on Granada, indicating the character of the war the Allies were waging.

Among the old American residents at Granada was John B. Lawless, a native of Ireland but a naturalized citizen of the United States. He had been for a number of years engaged in trade on the Isthmus, principally in the purchase of hides and skins for export to New-York. Of a mild temper and inoffensive manner he had conciliated even Granadian jealousy by the honesty of his dealings and the integrity of his character. During the first weeks of the occupation by the Americans he had been of much service to the Legitimists by bringing their little grievances and complaints to the attention of the general-in-chief; and his intercessions were uniformly in favor of the native race, and in order to protect them from the thoughtless conduct of the new-comers. So entire was his faith in the good will of the Legitimists toward him, so perfect was his confidence in the protection of his American citizenship, that he refused, when opportunity offered, to repair to the Plaza to seek the safety afforded by Nicaraguan arms. He remained in his house when the soldiers of Zavala entered the town; and he was in the very act of unfolding the American flag before his door, when the Guatemalans tore him from his house, took him to the Jalteva, and there riddling his body with bullets, vented their savage passions in stabbing the lifeless body with their bayonets.

Nor was Lawless the only victim of their violence. An agent of the American Bible Society, Rev. D. H. Wheeler, was taken from his house and murdered after the same fashion as Lawless. Rev. Wm. J. Ferguson, also, a preacher of the Methodist denomination, was torn from the arms of his wife and daughter, and met the same fate as Lawless and Wheeler. Not satisfied with murdering these harmless persons, the brutal soldiers of Carrera had robbed them of their clothes and thrown their naked bodies, like dogs, into the public places. And in the house where Father Rossiter was quartered, a crime even darker still was committed by the followers of Zavala. When the Guatemalan troops entered the town the children of an Englishman, who had lately arrived at Granada from New-York, were seated at dinner. The group at the table consisted of a boy six years old, two girls one four and the other two years old, and their nurse. A soldier passing by the window pointed his musket at the innocent party, and firing deliberately, killed the boy instantly. The nurse saved the girls by flight to the next house, while the soldiers were forcing the doors and windows of the room, where the dead boy lay.

These injuries were done to persons claiming the protection of the American flag; but that flag itself was the scoff and scorn of the soldiers an unlettered savage had let loose on the plains of Nicaragua. The American Minister, when the Allies attacked the town, lay nigh unto death from the effects of a sudden illness, which had seized him a few days previously. The ladies and other non-combatants had been sent to the Minister’s house at the first moment of alarm; but it was well that a small body of riflemen was also sent to protect them. The Minister was not in a condition to take charge of the helpless persons at his house; but his flag was waving its ample folds in front of the door, and this was deemed sufficient protection from the Guatemalans. When the enemy, however, got possession of the houses near the American legation, they began firing at the “star-spangled banner,” and called on Mr. Wheeler to come forth into the street. All the choice phrases of Spanish ribaldry were poured over the name of the _Ministro filibustero_—the filibuster Minister; and no epithet of hatred or contempt for the race of the North was left unuttered by the old Legitimists of Granada. It was well for Mr. Wheeler that the American Secretary of State about this time gave him leave to return to Washington in order to report the condition of affairs in Nicaragua—a civil way of telling the Minister his government had no further need of his services.

The loss of the Americans during the action of the 12th and 13th at Masaya and Granada, was something upward of a hundred—twenty-five killed and eighty-five wounded. The loss at Masaya was very slight: most of the casualties occurred at Granada. A few were missing, principally those belonging to the party Col. Fisher had taken from Masaya on the evening of the 12th. Fisher returning toward Masaya by a different road from that Walker took on the morning of the 13th, was surprised when he reached the outskirts of the town to find himself in the presence of a large detachment of the enemy. Hastily taking a side path toward Diria and Diriomo he succeeded for a time in evading the enemy; but it was not long before he again fell in with them, though not in such force as previously. Then the Rangers and officers with Fisher found that the heavy night-dew had made the Sharp’s carbines they carried unreliable, the moisture getting in between the chamber and the barrel. Finally the party separated, some soon finding their way to Granada, while it was several days before others returned. Lieutenant-Colonel Lainé, aide-de-camp to the general-in-chief, was taken prisoner by the Allies and shot. As soon as his execution was certainly known at Granada two Guatemalan officers, Lieutenant-Colonel Valderraman and Captain Allende, were there shot in retaliation.

The loss of the enemy at Granada was heavy. On the night of the 12th they probably buried their dead of that day, as many new graves were found in the neighborhood of the houses the Allies occupied. In addition to these, nearly a hundred bodies were buried by the Americans after Zavala retired to Masaya. The reports also stated that there were large numbers of wounded not only carried from Granada but also of those hurt at Masaya on the morning and afternoon of the 12th.