Chapter XII: The Defence of Rivas (14)

While Swingle and Potter were, under Henningsen’s direction, executing the orders for the destruction of the articles in the arsenal and ordnance, Walker sent for the surgeon-general, Coleman, and informing him of the agreement made with Davis, instructed him to remain in charge of the hospital, and see that the sick and wounded were properly cared for. He then made out a list of the officers who were to accompany him on board the St. Mary’s, and notified them to prepare forthwith to proceed to San Juan del Sur. The officers thus selected were, Henningsen, Hooff, Brady, Natzmer, Waters, Henry, Swingle, Rogers, Tucker, Kellum, McAllenny, West, Williamson, McEachin, McMichael, Hankins, and Bacon. About five o’clock in the afternoon, Commander Davis, with Zavala, arrived at Walker’s quarters; and Henningsen and Davis repaired to the Plaza, where all the troops of the garrison were formed. The order of the day, containing the agreement between Walker and Davis, was then read to the troops, and the garrison was delivered to the commander of the St. Mary’s. The state of the garrison, when given over to the United States officer, was: Wounded and sick in and out of hospital, surgeons, and hospital attendants, 173; prisoners, 102; officers, non-commissioned, and privates, exclusive of the 16 going to San Juan, 148; employees of departments and armed citizens, 86; native troops, 40. While Henningsen was turning over the garrison to Davis, Walker, accompanied by the officers he had selected, and by Gen. Zavala, rode out of Rivas, and took the road for San Juan del Sur. On the night of the first of May, a few hours after leaving Rivas, the Nicaraguan officers were aboard the St. Mary’s.

Commander Davis did not reach the St. Mary’s until the morning of the 2d. Soon after he came aboard the sloop he proposed to Walker that the schooner Granada should be given into his hands without the use of force. Of course the proposal was rejected. He then said to Walker that the latter might keep the arms and ammunition on the schooner if he would give up the vessel. This was a proposition to sell the Granada, with all the glories of the 23d of November, for the paltry cargo aboard of her; and there was not a lieutenant in the service of Nicaragua who would not have rejected it, with scorn and contempt for the officer, so far forgetful of his own honor as to utter the proposal. Just before dinner, on the 2d, Davis went ashore, leaving written orders with his first lieutenant to take the schooner. The log of the Granada, for the 2d, says: “At 4 P.M. Lieut. Maury came on board the schooner, and requested me to turn over the schooner to Capt. Davis. I asked why I should do so. He answered that Capt. Davis considered it his duty to seize her if I did not give her up, as he looked upon her as included in the treaty between himself and Gen. Walker. I refused to give her up.” Then Maury returned to the St. Mary’s, and requested Walker to give an order to Fayssoux to turn over the schooner to him. Walker replied he would not give the order, unless there was a demonstration of overwhelming force on the part of the St. Mary’s. Maury brought the broadside of the sloop to bear on the Granada, and then he received the order of surrender. The log continues: “He (that is Maury) returned in half an hour, with an order from Gen. Walker to turn her over to the United States; he was accompanied by 100 armed men and a howitzer. At 4.30 P.M. the Nicaraguan flag was hauled down, and the United States’ run up in its place, and my crew sent on shore.” Finally, on the 4th of May, the Granada was turned over to Costa Rica, and the person who received her for that republic was an aid of Cañas, a Jamaica negro, known by the name of Captain Murray.

This was a fit conclusion to the combined efforts of the British and United States naval forces to get the Americans out of Nicaragua. The descendant of revolutionary ancestors,[7] bearing, in his own name of Irvine that of a grandsire who was a general officer in the war of Independence—himself fitted by the purity and integrity of his character to adorn the service of any power on either continent—was forced to give way to a negro subject of Her Britannic Majesty holding a commission from the Republic of Costa Rica. The poet could not have imagined aught more striking or more characteristic.

Thus have I, during a leisure thrust on me against my will, tried to tell clearly and concisely the story of the rise, progress, and close, for a time, of the War in Nicaragua. Doubtless many brave deeds and some worthy names have escaped the notice they deserve, for I have been obliged to write almost entirely from memory, with few papers or documents to refresh my recollection of events now some time past. My main effort has been to trace as distinctly as I could the causes of the war, the manner in which it was waged, and the circumstances attending its conclusion. As I said in the last general order published at Rivas: “Reduced to our present position by the cowardice of some, the incapacity of others, and the treachery of many, the army has yet written a page of American history which it is impossible to forget or erase. From the future, if not from the present, we may expect just judgment.” That which you ignorantly call “Filibusterism” is not the offspring of hasty passion or ill-regulated desire; it is the fruit of the sure, unerring instincts which act in accordance with laws as old as the creation. They are but drivellers who speak of establishing fixed relations between the pure white American race, as it exists in the United States, and the mixed Hispano-Indian race, as it exists in Mexico and Central America, without the employment of force. The history of the world presents no such Utopian vision as that of an inferior race yielding meekly and peacefully to the controlling influence of a superior people. Whenever barbarism and civilization, or two distinct forms of civilization, meet face to face, the result must be war. Therefore, the struggle between the old and the new elements in Nicaraguan society was not passing or accidental, but natural and inevitable. The war in Nicaragua was the first clear and distinct issue made between the races inhabiting the northern and the central portions of the continent. But while this contest sprang from natural laws, I trust the foregoing narrative shows that the stronger race kept throughout on the side of right and justice; and if they so maintained their cause in Central America let them not doubt of its future success. Nor kings nor presidents can arrest a movement based on truth and conducted with justice; and the very obstacles they place in the way merely prepare those who are injured for the part they are to play in the world’s history. He is but a blind reader of the past who has not learned that Providence fits its agents for great designs by trials, and sufferings, and persecutions. “By the cross thou shalt conquer” is as clearly written in the pages of history as when the startled emperor saw it blazing in letters of light athwart the heavens. In the very difficulties with which the Americans of Nicaragua have had to contend I see the presage of their triumph. Let me, therefore, say to my former comrades, be of good cheer: faint not, nor grow weary by the way, for your toils and your efforts are sure in the end to win success. With us there can be no choice; honor and duty call on us to pursue the path we have entered, and we dare not be deaf to the appeal. By the bones of the mouldering dead at Masaya, at Rivas, and at Granada, I adjure you never to abandon the cause of Nicaragua. Let it be your waking and your sleeping thought to devise means for a return to the land whence we were unjustly brought. And, if we be but true to ourselves, all will yet end well.

THE END.

GUATEMALA, HONDURAS, SAN SALVADOR & COSTA RICA.

_Revised, Enlarged_ AND PUBLISHED BY S. H. GOETZEL & Co. Mobile, Ala.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] It may be proper to say that these passages were written before Mr. Seward delivered in the Senate, his masterly speech of the 29th February, 1860. However much a person may differ from the Senator’s views, it is impossible not to approve the force and vigor of his thoughts and language. The writer deems it a great error, on the part of Southern men, to attempt to belittle the intellect, or depreciate the motives of the leaders of the anti-slavery party. The higher their intellects, the purer their motives, the more dangerous are they to the South.

[2] The resolutions were written by Hon. P. Soulé.

[3] Hon. A. H. Stephens was among the few public men of the South who clearly perceived the full importance of the Nicaraguan movement.

[4] The writer is principally indebted for the incidents of the operations at Granada between the 24th November and 12th of December to the “_Personal Recollections of Nicaragua,” by Gen. C. F. Henningsen, author of “Recollections of Russia,” and “Twelve Months’ Campaign in Spain_.”

[5] His Excellency James Buchanan.

[6] The commander-in-chief referred to was probably Commodore Mervine. The latter was an old and intimate friend, as the author has been told, of Secretary Marcy; and both he and Davis were sent to the Pacific in January, 1857. Undoubtedly both of them received verbal instructions far more precise and definite, than their written orders. Soon after Davis reached Panama, direct from New-York, he took command of the St. Mary’s and sailed for San Juan del Sur.

[7] The paternal grandfather of Captain Fayssoux was chief surgeon of the Carolina forces during the war of Independence; his maternal grandfather was General Irvine, who commanded a division under Washington at the crossing of the Delaware.

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