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.
[OMITTED]
“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.
