University of Virginia Library

General William Walker, citizen, soldier, president and historian of Nicaragua, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1824, of Scotch ancestry, and educated at a university in Paris, after which he studied international law in London. He voyaged to California in 1850 and, after some experience in the gold mines and gathering many bold men about him he became editor of the San Francisco Herald and began to publish his plans to his followers. He made two bold attempts to establish a settlement in Baja California, but was twice driven out by the Mexicans. Returning to California he raised a company and sailed for Nicaragua. War had been raging there for a long time between the aristocrats, or church party, of Granada, and the Democrats of Leon, to the north. Americans as well as British were fighting on both sides.

Colonel Doubleday, whose book on the subject is worth reading, was in the field long before Walker, who went into the country by special invitation from the president of the Democrats, whose capital was at Leon. Here, Doubleday, an English man by birth, joined Walker and, so far as he could, kept at his side to the end.

Doubleday says Walker was ambitious, and that in many quiet walks along the silvery beach of Lake Nicaragua he told him of vast plans of conquest, to include Honduras, Mexico and all Central America. And yet, Doubleday, in this same book, tells us that Walker was morose, reserved and had no confidants.

True, these accusations were made and published broadcast over the world right along and were not denied; but from Colonel Doubleday's own account of Walker's character he would certainly be the last man to tell the Colonel, or any one else, of any such fatal purpose. I know that I never heard a hint of it from him or any one near him. Still, we must ascribe his downfall to these stories; for he had hardly been seated in the Presidential chair when he found not only the Church party of his own adopted country against him but every little neighboring republic in arms to expel him.

After fearful fighting at Granada, Walker, shut up in Rivas, surrendered to the United States and was taken to New Orleans for trial, his men going whither they would or could.

He now published an elaborate book, giving the wealth and wonderful resources of the country and, at the same time, giving every detail of the war, under the title of The War in Nicaragua. It is written in the third person, like the books of the first Cæsar, and is as conservative and exact as an equation.

He was tried in New Orleans and, on his vindication, raised in that city and Mobile a force far exceeding that with which he had left California and with which he had fought his way to the presidency; but his Californians were dead or scattered, and these untried men of enervating cities knew little of arms and were, comparatively, worthless.

Walker's last expedition was closely watched by British gunboats. He took refuge up a river on the coast of Honduras and soon found himself cut off on all sides. He led his men up the coast and down, facing fifty to one, as at Rivas and Granada, but they soon became disheartened and he surrendered to the captain of a British man-of-war, who at once turned him over to Honduras, when he was promptly tried at the drum's head, condemned and shot.

General Walker was the cleanest man in word and deed I ever knew. He never used tobacco in any form, never drank anything at all, except water, and always ate most sparingly. He never jested and I cannot recall that I ever saw him smile. He was very thin of flesh and of most impressive presence, especially when on the firing line. At such times he was simply terrible; his gray eyes expanding and glittering like broken steel with the rage of battle. He was, in the eyes of his devoted Californians, truly “The bravest of the brave.” The manner of his death showed not only the true courage but the serene Christian peace and dignity of this “gray-eyed man of destiny.”

The priest who attended him in his last moments told me that Walker had no sooner been put in prison than he sent for his spiritual adviser. He knew his fate beforehand.

“Father, my political career is ended and I wish to prepare to die.”

And even as he spoke to the priest an officer with a platoon of executioners entered the prison to inform him that he was sentenced to be shot. Walker had disdained to make any show of defense for himself, but begged to the last moment that his followers should not be made to suffer. “My men knew nothing of my sudden resolve to reach Nicaragua by way of Truxillo when I found I could not escape the British gunboat. I alone am to blame. I was wrong in making war upon Honduras.”

His dress, language and bearing were those of a clergyman, when not on the firing line, and his whole time was spent in reading. He never wasted a moment in idle talk, never took advice but always gave commands, and they must be obeyed. On entering a town he, as a rule, issued a proclamation making death the penalty alike for insulting a woman, for theft or for entering a church save as a Christian should. He lived and died a devout Catholic.

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“If you will open my heart when I am dead you will see Calais burned there; burned in the very heart of my heart.”

I have no warrant for saying that plans for the Nicaraguan canal crowded in upon the last moments of General Walker, for I was not with him in this last expedition, but I know that this one colossal idea towered over, and high above, all his other plans from the first, and even after his surrender to Lieutenant

Davis, of the United States Navy, at Rivas. His work as general of the Nicaraguan forces, his plans as President of Nicaragua, all honors, all things that came to him he reckoned as nothing in comparison with this one purpose. The transcontinental canal would make not only Mexico and all the lesser republics tributary to Nicaragua, but all the civilized world as well. He was well known personally in Paris and London, where his position and credit were of the best. He was looked upon in better Europe, not as an adventurer, but as a wise, well-meaning and far-seeing soldier and statesman. America was comparatively poor at that time, and, especially the northern part, hostile to his plans for the betterment of Nicaragua. So it was that he planned and arranged wholly with foreign capital for moneys to do the work. I am not certain that I know exactly, at this remote date, but I feel almost certain that the Rothschilds were to finance the canal and at the same time control the great quicksilver mines in California.

I am quite certain, however, that General Walker proposed to bring out many ship loads of the strong Celt, Saxon, and North Sea people to do the work, serve as soldiers and then help populate and civilize the richest and most favored spot of all this earth. I remember how carefully he noted that the health of his men, who were made to take care of themselves, was so much better than that of the native soldiers, who ate and drank, when they ate at all, whatever came to hand. Indeed, it would seem as if we were once miraculously saved from annihilation by breaking out of cholera in the enemy's camp, not ten miles distant.

The first real work towards the trans-continental canal was done by George Squier, our Minister to Peru; seconded by Stevens, another learned, able, and enterprising engineer. Five different routes were surveyed, or at least shown to be possible.

The first chapters in the story of the great canal, after these two able men had done their work and gone their ways, are far from complimentary to either the wisdom or the worth of most of those concerned.

At last the French took hold of the idea, but a treacherous Nicaraguan, high in authority, was bribed and to the consternation and disgust of all who knew anything about the resources and glory of Nicaragua, Panama was preferred. Of course America will now soon complete it. But we must do more than complete the Panama Canal.

As a dying queen proffered millions of money for a moment

of time, so Commerce, as she comes to possess her full estate, will pay billions of money for a single day, if need be. The Nicaragua route is more than a day shorter in the circuit of the world, as well as between the most important parts. The changeless and all-conquering laws of trade will compel the use of the shorter route; whoever may be its owners.

But there is something more than time and trade in the proposition. The world is learning at last to say with Socrates, “Know thyself”: the world wants to see the world and to see it at its best and to see it in its sublimest aspect and place. And the one sublimest place on the face of the earth is the mountains, the forests and the inland seas of Nicaragua. The five mountains of eternal fires beyond Leon, the gleaming, bottomless and flower-hung lakes, the sinuous and forest-swept rivers, the rainbow birds, monstrous reptiles of land and sea, blossoming trees heavy with perfume where mountains of snow and of flame look down on you as you sail by—these the world will see and know at whatever cost, as it comes to its own and comes to know itself. There is grandeur of scene in Canada as you glide by over the iron spans; but it is monotonously grand and cold and lifeless. The gleaming snow peaks of the Oregon Sierra, with their verdant fields, lowing herds and responsive human life, make a good second, but these two most favored parts of scenery under the northern path of the sun are so entirely surpassed by the endless summers in Nicaragua as to make any sort of comparison quite impossible. And so it results that the civilized and seeing world must and will pass that way, as surely as the crowding and ever-conquering battleships of commerce must and will lead that way.

If the Panama route proves to be a success, the Nicaragua route will be at once begun. If it proves a failure, this Nicaraguan route must and will be at once pushed to conclusion.

And who will build it? England? France? Germany? Russia? Japan? It matters not which of the three or four or five. But Russia, with her millions of money and men and her burning jealousy of the Island Empire, might try to build it; or even Japan with her brave ambition and steel-built walls. And we could and would plead the Monroe Doctrine and fight any one or all of them? We could and would do nothing of the sort. There is a precedent to the contrary. We allowed France to embark in the costly venture and we could not now refuse a like courtesy to any other nation, even if we would. Besides, this Monroe Doctrine is a chain of “glittering generalities” which

we have been shaking in the ears of the world without ever having tested its strength in the least. The strongest chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The boldest man in the century just behind us said, “I consider the Monroe Doctrine only a bit of idle bluster.”

Then since by earthquakes, sudden floods, tidal waves and uncertain sea levels we may fail at Panama and so tempt some foreign power to invade Nicaragua, and since our success would be a tenfold temptation, what should we do but at once secure the right of way to ourselves, from Nicaragua, and so insure peace and prosperity to all before other nations step in. Cast bread on the waters here and it will surely return an hundred-fold. When we were building the first Pacific railroad no one ever dreamed we would need a second one. But we are building others right along. We must control the second Darien Canal.

A great canal must and will be built across Nicaragua. And we this great republic, with its millions and billions, must build it. We have more than a right. We have a Duty!

Nicaragua is a healthy country. The water is good, the wood abundant and the people industrious, able and willing to do all the work, so there need be no loss of time or great loss of life in its construction.